Month: January 2026

Coldest day of the year, apparently, with Wind Chill. Americans love simplification and buzzwords. -10 temperature. They say: “Real feel” -25. Celsius. Real feel. Oh go suck a pig. But yes. It’s COLD.

I have a heated gilet. It’s like being wrapped in an electric blanket. The cut of it is bollocks, it makes me look like Mark Fuckerberg. But unlike him it does something useful. Still it takes ages for all of us to get kitted out to go outside. And my gilet is liable to short itself out at a moment’s notice. I’m of the generation that worked out if the battery was flat by putting your tongue on it. I left my best electric blanket on the bed when Brian moved in and told him about it. He took it off without trying it. It still makes me sad for him thinking about what an inherited seventies safety hangover is denying him in the modern world. I trust that my gilet isn’t going to kill me. Even if it overheats itself. Modern electric blankets are incredible things and you won’t get a tickle even if someone pours a whole litre of water on you on purpose. But we were taught to fear the things, and conditioning is hard to overcome.

My new boots – lent by lovely Brian – give me blisters UNDER MY TOES. Anywhere else I would keep wearing them and weather it. But I need to be good at moving for the show so I’m in my trainers and thick socks for the short term. Wet feet beats hobbling actor.

We are in the Decio Theatre here at Notre Dame this week. Last time in 2019 we were in Washington Hall with the bats. This theatre is kind to actors and good for Shakespeare. The stage is right on the seats, the acoustic is tuned for students who can’t project, we can do nuance here.

We built the stage, settled in, and started on detail work again. And we worked longer than we had planned despite Scott trying to stop us – bless him. Bunch of enthusiasts, we are. I am proud to be part of it and it will keep growing and growing and growing as we keep going and going and going.

—

I wrote that in the pub. I’m home now in my weird little room. We have been watching the college football final, but American Football doesn’t suit my particular set of neurodivergencies. It’s too bitty for me to settle my interest into so I’m always distracted in the gaps between plays, and even though now I know what I’m looking at and how it all works I get switched out in the play breaks (for instance into writing my blog like I did tonight)

Here we all are in the Decio. Joy to come.

I couldn’t check in fully online yesterday. Random ID check. Meant I couldn’t adjust my seat. The flight is full so by the time I’m ID checked there is absolutely no wiggle on seats. “Oh yeah,” she says “you wouldn’t have been able to change your seat because of the ID check thing, right?” “Yes that’s right. I’ve got a bad back and I’m six foot tall.” “We are completely fully booked now. But inform the flight staff and if someone misses a connection we might be able to move you.” Nobody misses their connection. Darn.

Middle seat right at the back. A young tired social media vodka drinker on my left, thankfully diminuitive and hammered to sleep. On my right, the lady immediately has a protracted hacking cough as I sit down. “Did something go down the wrong way?” I ask her this hopefully. She turns to me. Her eyes are streaming. “I don’t what the fuck is wrong but it’s bad, I’m really really sick,” she tells me and I turn away from her. It’s bad enough generally on an airplane. I’ve rolled terrible dice here.

As we take off, water starts dripping onto my bald patch. There is consternation. Benjy is behind me and clocks it, and catches a staff member. “Has someone’s water bottle burst?” The air hostess is here to comfort me immediately. “Oh that always happens here. It’s the air conditioning unit. It’s just water.” So I’m in the middle seat with no legroom, next to patient zero, and now I’m getting baptised with filthy water. British Airways. To Fly. To Serve.

I watch Oppenheimer. Gorgeous work. Maté is in it, so I take a selfie with him.

They fed me. They had run out of vegetarian options by the time they got to me. I didn’t have a choice in the matter I consumed but it was vaguely edible matter. Some sort of deconstructed burger thing. The dying woman next to me asked me to open her water bottle. I then immediately went to wash my hands. I really don’t want what she had. Thankfully I’m maxed up on vitamins at the moment.

Then I watch Avatar. The first one. Never seen it before. When it came out it looked like a cartoon and someone said “It’s Dances with Wolves in space”. I couldn’t be arsed back then, and all the hype pushed me away. Finally watched it. It passed the time. By the time it was over we were landing, which was excellent.

I’m right at the back on the left hand side so I’m pretty much the last person to leave the plane. “PASSENGER BARCLAY PASSENGER BARCLAY” says a pissed off looking woman who has clearly been saying “PASSENGER BARCLAY” for months by now to everyone as they walked past. “That’s me,” I tell her, bemused. She gives me a poorly written form. “Your case is lost. It’ll be here tomorrow.”

The form encourages me to contact http://www.ba.com/bagagge (sic) for more information. There’s no file reference. British Airways. To Fly. To Serve.

Security went well. And then to the baggage carousel, sorry the bagagge carousel, where I thought it worth looking for both cases. And curiously I found both cases. So they didn’t lose my case. So the poor lady didn’t have to shout my name for a year.

Now we are in a van on the way to South Bend with all our cases. It’s fucking cold. Minus ten. But I’ve got a snood. All is well.

Last time down the rabbit hole tonight. Slightly earlier than usual. An oil and gas company having their belated Christmas party at The Underglobe and muggins here is out on the street with ears stuck to a top hat, whiteface clown makeup, tights and great big padded arse with a fluffy rabbit tail on it.

“Is Christmas a very important date? I would suggest it is. You’re late for it.” It writes itself. I’ve got my patter down now for it and they were all a game lot. Getting a lot back from all of them. Maybe it helped that I’ve been away from it awhile, and coming back employed as an actor. I’m not gonna be second guessing myself as the confidence is up.

But that said, I’m a ruin of myself. That tooth extraction last night was literally a shock to the system. And then last night I blocked my back so I couldn’t lie on my right. I get my deep sleep on that side so it was a restless night. But I wanted to be absolutely sure it healed up nicely. Don’t want dry socket on the plane.

They absolutely rinsed me, that dentist, at a time when I’m already brassic. I’m gonna try to be as frugal as I can over there. Got to accumulate. I just spent half my tax bill on having my tooth pulled and I can’t afford to pay it at all now. But I’m employed and they will pay before long. Gonna cancel any subscriptions I can cancel like Deliveroo plus and get myself back in the game. This job is way too short to rely on.

I think I’ve packed. Hope so, we fly tomorrow morning. Brian lent me a good but not a huge case, and I’m bringing the denim bag Lou lovingly made for me, and my accordion.

“And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, and then from hour to hour we rot and rot”.

I’m the oldest in the AYLI company and I’m definitely in the second section of that particular aphorism that my character finds surprisingly funny. Impermanence and rot. Teeth. Eyes. Taste. Everything. It’s all going in the end. And it seems for many of the company, the list is starting to get underway.

“I think I’ve chipped my tooth at the front,” Joanna said in check-in, while I explored the calamity of a shattered molar I got from biting into nothing more than a biscuit about two weeks ago. “I can’t stop running my tongue around it”. I know the feeling and assure her it’s natural. I remember though the first time I had a tooth properly split, right at the back, and I couldn’t swallow. It was scary. I was lucky with this one though. Prevention before it forced my hand.

“The tooth is split and it’s infected. Needs to come out right away. I’m surprised you aren’t in pain yet but you will be.” Damn. I partly hoped it would just be a check-up and a band aid and can deal with it when I’m back home. But nay. He’s got the needle in my gum five minutes after the x-ray, and I’m listening to little crunching sounds and my best biting tooth tries and fails to cling on. I didn’t ask to keep it. Horrible fucking thing.

I told the AYLI WhatsApp group. Benjy is having repairs done on his front teeth, he took some damage to old damage. Sam is off to the dentist tomorrow… “True I have lost my teeth in your service,” my character Adam says. Sam will be fine though, he’s still on the ripening part of his strange eventful pilgrimage. Bunch of crumbling Shakespeareans coming over to make a play about love. At least I’m on the “mortality” character.

We have all been too busy since rehearsal started to put time aside for the dentist. We all know this is the longest gap between showings we will have. So we are all getting our notoriously bad British mouths ready for America.

I feel fine, a bit shaky but it feels like it has clotted ok. Will sleep carefully tonight if I can, and Brian bought me yoghurt and ibuprofen. I nearly took one of my tramadol but they are over a decade old, off one of the chefs at the open golf tournament. I think I’ll bin them.

It seems my dreams are waking me at about 4 these days. This is really impractical cos it’s the wrong way round to make the jetlag easy heading over. My ideal situation for the next few days is to stay up until about 3am and then sleep until noon.

Turns out my body has other ideas.

We packed up the show case today. The whole show is in Bergman. I drove it back to Chelsea and it was pouring with rain. I got up to my flat and at about 5pm with absolutely no choice in the matter I fell asleep with the blanket on next to Misty and the two of us lay in sweet sweet slumber for a deep two hours. I woke up at 2:30pm Indiana time.

Thankfully I don’t have to buy boots. Brian went on a bootpurchasing spree about a year ago. I didn’t know until today that we are the same shoe size. He doesn’t want his Timberlands. I do. They aren’t walking boots like I normally have, they haven’t the easy lacing hooks and they need to be undone to get your foot in so they’ve nicked a good hour or so of my life in accumulated faff if I have them for as long as I normally have boots. But they’re a gift. I’ll trade an hour for the cost of those boots this time. I’m sure I’ve traded much more time for short term highs in my early thirties.

So now there’s nothing between me and America but time and the Atlantic ocean. I’m gonna deliberately stay up late tonight. I always try to begin to function towards the jet lag when I’m anticipating a long haul. The less time spent in bed in interesting places the more time you have to find the interest. My power nap might turn out to have been a help towards getting me onto US time.

That said I am FULL of cheese. All the Christmas hard cheeses and half a pack of raclette cheese just went into an absolute beast of a macaroni for the household. It might make me sleepy but since it is my interaction with Dreamland that is currently bashing my sleep patterns, an early cheesy night will only bring complicated stories. I dream semi lucid much of the time, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t bonkers dreams. And right now I’m playing multiple characters. A lovelorn shepherd boy, a vital old man on his last legs, a sadistic majordomo that hates his boss, a depressed pompous old louche (get that for free sure), the God of Marriage, a banished lord and a local pop star. All their journeys and needs are conflicting at the moment. It’s enough to play and honour one part with this writing. This is why I love absolutely love the work we do with AFTLS. The shows always please me so much, they are like little tight eggs of passion and control and technique. They’re actor’s shows and I’m an actor so yeah, I love to see the solutions and the connections and the things that happen that are true that could never happen without the problem of making it with a 24 kilo suitcase and 5 people.

Ahhh wonders. I’m home.

I woke at about half 3 and that was it for sleep. Busted out of a dream into full wakefulness. By 5 I had totally given up and I was reading As You Like It. I beat through all my verse. Found an Alexandrine I had missed. Found a useful storytelling pause. Found a moment where Jacques tries to pull everyone into prose and jar things into a different energy as is his job. Early morning good. It was time well spent. But I’m fucked now.

Went into Brixton by overground from Victoria. The streets of Brixton are always madness. The narrative that London is somehow dangerous seems utterly egregious and unfamiliar to the place I’m living in. Yeah sure I live in Chelsea. But I’m an actor. I’m going to the interesting places. Brixton has always had vibrant shouty multicoloured streetlife. There’s no more threat now than there was when I was a teenager going to gigs in pubs. I would be considerably more concerned about going to a country where there’s an active militia of untrained murderous goons with guns. Just as well I’m going somewhere perfectly safe instead, eh? Eh?

We had our sharing today. Some gorgeous people with us, to watch and share thoughts. This thing we have made – it works. And we care about it. And we are all really pulling in the same direction for it. This strange unusual pastoral play, a serious of vignettes on love bound together into a mad tale of a court lost in a dark forest of love.

I wish we had it longer. Such a short tour and this group is joyful to the point it makes my heart feel full to bursting. We have an official scribe in Grace. I avoided that role because the daily drive of this strange thing I feed you – it cannot and will not guarantee quality. Days like today I have only the contents of my head and the last few hours left. Other days I have too much time and too much whimsy.

I went to a show. Brian sorted tickets for the household. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. I bought a Don’t Panic T-Shirt. It’s an immersive show with actors who aren’t shouting at you blind, so it might be unfamiliar to Secret Cinema aficionados. I think they’re probably being paid in more than carpet-mites. It’s a karaoke musical experience inspired by the Douglas Adams books, with some very deft and moving moments, with exceptionally clever and present immersive performers thank god and in the world of the Douglas Adams. Some Shunt influences. Some Gatsby influences. But these things are inevitable. It was a unique and delightful experience, I didn’t feel part of a conveyor belt, and the actors weren’t dead in the eyes when they spoke to me. Perhaps they’re being paid properly. It was all held together with smart writing. Different stations occasionally. Some performers wasted. Some ideas given more production space than they warranted in the execution. But I think they are still refining what’s possible. I like them. And I like the game they have made. Hopefully it’ll run a good while. I would go again if I was with a friend who was a fan.

I am gonna sleep like a log.

Much better today.

We are in rehearsal for As You Like It. Coming to the end of the process. Tomorrow we will play to an audience of friends who have done this work before. Some of them will have played the parts we are playing on this very job. They will give notes. Some of them are “when I gave my Hamlet, I made this choice etc”. Others are “Do you really think that The Scottish King would wear Green?” But a few are like : “Why are you making it harder for yourself unnecessarily in X moment.” For that reason, it is golden.

This is quite a precious process. We have made this thing, the five of us, in isolation. But this thing we have made is for public consumption. So now we have to move from the realm of ideas into practical reality. It will always be a jolt. But we are ready for it.

Sure I’m still paraphrasing bits of prose. I know that will be happening at this stage. My mind is on staging right now and physical choices. The words are the liquid. They come easy so I’m pushing them down the priority list. But tomorrow I’ll have to bump them up a bit. “Are you not aware of the rhythm of that line?” I don’t want that note. So I’ll have to be aware of that shit tomorrow…

Tomorrow is basically the big high pressure day. After tomorrow it all gets easier. But until tomorrow… Aargh

I had a long chat with someone close to me just now. Didn’t bring that in. It’s tough for her right now.

It was good to hear her issues so I could forget about the fact I’m nervous about tomorrow. I tried to offer decent advice. It’s hard though without full context, but it feels from the outside like her direct boss is dealing with past trauma that causes him to mistrust and cut out his deputy. Likely he had a deputy screw him over on a past job. Shitty for her though who is just trying to be her best self and getting stuff back from him that reads as classic clear bullying even if she isn’t reading it like that. She is full of positivity towards this guy, trying to find reasons, looking for ways in which she might have escalated it… I just want to pick him up by his ankles.

I have only ever once in my life experienced stuff like that. It’s impossible from the inside when it happens, I know that. It wasn’t my fault, it wasn’t my superior’s fault. It was a clash of worldviews. But I could never have sat my boss down and said “You’re constantly treating me like absolute shit needlessly and making everything harder for all of us in the process.” They were my boss. They pay the bills. And occasionally they take half my wage from jobs they have nothing to do with.

But yeah, when someone above you is being a dick and you know you’re in the right, the best thing is to just walk. But if you’re in a vocational job it’s harder.

There’s surely a way to solve it… But I think of my example from my life and I know there’s no way on God’s green earth I’ll ever do another live event if they are my direct superior. I can’t be fucked to be someone’s whipping boy.

I really hope this works out… She ain’t a drinker so the social stuff is less available to her. She’s not judging anyone but it’s telling how much work happens in the pub when it comes to allaying people’s insecurity.

Fraught day today. We’ve got a new lovely person in the room who is known by some but not by all, so the three of us who don’t know her feel slightly on the back foot suddenly as there are preexisting relationships. That’s worth me remembering for when we get to America, as I know and like Scott and Debs and Peter and Grant and many of the people at Notre Dame and Austin. The dynamic between the five of us is precious, and it is important to hold onto that and be sensitive to when people might feel uncomfortable or back footed. The guys dealt with it beautifully but I had my first “moment” almost immediately after the stranger was in the room. I had made a decision to keep being my playful experimental self despite the sudden pressure of the stranger. I got a hard “no” about something I was playing with. It made it look like that was something that keeps happening, and I honestly felt completely isolated for a moment. The group came together quickly, but all my insecurities jumped to the front.

We only have a few days left. This will be a good show, but I want it to be brilliant. And if that involves me noodling up to the wire with things like extendable magic wands then dammit I’m gonna noodle. Annoyingly Benjy fiddled with it when it was primed during check-in and it extended into Grace so now everyone is nervous about it even when it’s fully extended, like… rather than bringing something lovely fun and appropriate into the room I’ve brought in something dangerous and problematic. I saw people flinching around it while out, so I thought that perhaps overusing it might make them less uncomfortable, so … I overused it looking for the right moment to fire it and I ended up having it randomly hard cut by someone who hadn’t seen what I was trying to do with it, before I was able to properly explore it, because Benjy had pushed the button in check-in. Circumstances. It’s annoying. But… we have to make space for this sort of thing. It’s just us on the road. The dynamic is the most important. If someone is scared of spiders we don’t have spider props. insha’Allah. We couldn’t eat peanuts on Twelfth Night. Jono loves Reeses pieces and was mortified. I backed up Katherine.

I’m not gonna drop it yet as nobody is allergic to magic wands. The wand will come with me to America in my personal luggage. It isn’t that it isn’t right, but… my way of just trying things first and discussing them later often results in hard barriers. I should have learnt that by now. (I’m the only one extending my trip. Adventure is not in everybody’s blood.)

I am now gonna have to have a day or two of being doggedly reliable so people can see that’s a part of my jam. Because it is. But only so people relax around me enough that I can try to make magic again.

Sure it might be wrong for the right reasons, I haven’t finished exploring it and couldn’t with our new sixth person. All potential magic is potentially magical, kids.

I’m not looking forward to tomorrow as much as I have looked forward to all previous days. The dynamic has shifted. I’m hoping it’ll be fine … but this has been really precious and suddenly there are alliances.

Best get to bed so I can be solid tomorrow.

In light of recent events, we at the “Correct Naming for Religions Society” have made a decision that will largely only effect our cousins across the pond, but some people here in the UK as well and globally to a lesser extent.

There is a faith system called “Christianity” built around the teachings of one Jesus Christ, a Nazarene carpenter’s son and also perhaps a divine immaculate conception. He lived an exemplary life, and his teachings were remarkable. Exactly what one might expect from a divinity undergoing a human lifetime. The trinity locked part of itself into human suffering to understand, goes one of the versions of the narrative. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. To understand and redeem flawed humanity, and even, at the hardest part, to cut itself off from itself, abandon itself to loneliness. So God would experience human death, before of course, resurrection because God is eternal. “My God my God why have you forsaken me?” Jesus, on the cross, suddenly cut off from his own divinity. Fully human, so he could experience mortal suffering and death and commence the harrowing of hell. Oh and perhaps teleport to the future and hang out with some guy in Utah with bling plates if that’s your jam.

It’s a huge story. It’s a remarkable faith. And the teachings of Jesus are excellent and kind and human. Of course they are if you believe he’s the divine made flesh, but even if you just live by his tenets he’s got good ones. We need to spell out these things. We have made civilisation up, we have invented morality, some people are only gonna be nice if they believe in consequences for not being nice. It is useful to spread these messages.

“Blessed are the peacemakers”. “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that?”

So yeah, we need a local rebrand, don’t we. All this Christ stuff doesn’t wash with the majority of people in the world’s newest dictatorship and their growing horde of toadies over here. But they are using the phrase “Christianity” to justify much of their division and hatred and ridiculous thinking.

We at the CRNS have therefore rebranded what they assign their faith to. Instead of calling it “Christianity” we are calling it simply “Ianity” This effectively removes the problem of lovely kind caring Jesus Christ from this faith structure that is merely being used as a bludgeon and an excuse to divide and hate.

“Ian” is the focus of this new version of faith. Praise be to Ian. The people attaching themselves to it will doubtless be thrilled not to have to be associated with such a woke liberal figure as Jesus.

We are currently taking suggestions as to what form exactly this new “Ian” takes. Ianity (not to be mistaken for inanity) is a faith that believes deeply in following the tenets of Ian which we are currently establishing. We might attach it to a famous Ian past or present, but for now it is just Ianity while we effect the transfer.

Just so you are current with our thinking, we at CRNS currently think of Ian as a middle aged or elderly white male. LO, he is frightened of being replaced but painfully aware of his own irrelevance. It comes to pass that he wants things to be great again like when he was young and he didn’t have to work to get food cos mummy and daddy gave it to him. That sort of thing. Bring back I dunno whatever. Why can’t we all have meh meh meh meh? I remember when you could X without Y. Not like now when it’s all Z.

We need to flesh out exactly what the story and rules are with Ian, fill in the blanks in the doctrine etc … but:

We are Proud to announce Ianity.

Details aren’t really important in Ianity, it’s more about a feeling. If you’re an Ian, like Ian himself, behold! you hate and fear everyone who isn’t you, but you are justified in your hate and fear because yea they are not Ian. And if they happen to be called Ian then lo and behold they aren’t Ian enough for only Ian and your own stunted inner life be Ian enough for Ianity.

We at CRNS feel this separation of Ianity from Christianity will be a helpful distinction going forward. The well meaning and exemplary practitioners of Christianity then won’t get tangled up with all these horrible angry hateful morons who are currently muddying the name of a great world religion, pulling things out of ancient texts from the dawn of society and airing them like they are still relevant, justifying structures and opinions that lost relevance thousands of years ago. It is long past time to make this distinction.

Behold, Ian is a man of small critical thinking and much opinIAN. Thus, his followers are merely IANnocently following the tenets of their lord. It maketh so much sense. Taketh all the cognitive dissonance out from horrible horrible people self reflecting ideas of their own righteousness while behaving atrociously.

If you hear “Christian values” from an Ianity follower spewing divisIAN and vitrIANol, you can correct them – “No no, you mean Ian values.” And then it all makes sense again. They are just being a total fuckwit in order to be like their Messiah, Ian. Praise be to Ian.

At CRNS we are currently drawing up a better profile of exactly who this Ian was/is and what the rules are. Like are we allowed to draw pictures of Ian? Do Ianists have to wear special hats? Can an Ianist marry a Christian? So much to hammer out. Is he alive? But these things can take hundreds of years. Watch this space.

Once we know if there will be consequences for doing so we will try to release an official picture of Ian – but only if we learn that Ian is okay with pictures. Some Prophets can get really weird about Instagram etc. There are some with massive no photo deals and break them at your peril. Ian is new but he isn’t modern. He’s grounded in a romantic past that never existed.

We are excited to see how this new distinction helps understanding of nuance regarding global religions. We know that Christians who understand and care about the teachings of Christ will be relieved and happy for the separatIAN.

It isn’t 6pm on a Saturday night in London. I’m in bed already and honestly I’m fine with this decision. Both the cats jumped up with me partly because it’s unusual and partly because they know it is likely the electric blanket is gonna go on and they will get some stroking.

On arrival home I was presented with sweetcorn and courgette fritters and dahl. Brian has got a Planthood. Very good tasty easy healthy food. I only get one full day off this week so I’m trying to use this evening like a whole day of relaxation. I ate the lot, drank a mango lassi and decided to go to bed.

I could go next door and watch a movie with Brian and be sociable. That would involve getting out of bed. I don’t think I will. He’s watching Star Wars. It might distract me …

I’ve been sad today. A suicide in my block over the Christmas period that I’ve only just become aware of. It’s hard not to wonder if it could have been shifted. It’s always a huge shock when someone does that even if you’ve only met them in a corridor from time to time. Still went to rehearsal and worked on this mighty play about love and the seasons and the passage of time and the circle of life.

This is a hard season, even if the light is coming back incrementally. We are past the artificial joy of Christmas but it is a long old slog to February and let’s be honest, no matter how hard I try to style out February as the beginning of Spring, it’s usually something of a shitshow.

So I’m gonna solve the rest of the day with a book, cat cuddles and an electric blanket.