A little lockup near the Barbican full of Elizabethan costume.
On my way there, I walked through the tunnel that I have walked through so many times. But I stopped this time and went to the bottom of Lauderdale Tower. In a room there in 1999, about 30 young men and women auditioned first round for Guildhall. Two of us got recalled. Myself and Alex Hassell. At the time I wondered if they had lost their paperwork and just recalled both people called Alex to make sure they got him. He was surrounded by all the National Youth Theatre kids. I was in the weird kids group in the corner. “Shall we go for a pint?” he asked. And we made friends.
He went to Central but we stayed in touch and The Factory happened through him and Tim Evans and I eventually got stuck in and I’m still stuck.
It’s a shop now, that room.
So much started for me just there. So many strands of my life. Wendy Allnutt recalled me, and Toby Dantzig my old school rival was in the first year when I auditioned, the second year when I arrived. We had been set up against each other at school but had seen through it at the last moment and written each other very balanced and thoughtful messages of farewell – a step up to maturity for me certainly and maybe for him as well. We were both being bullied in our own ways. We both didn’t fit in our own ways. Neither of us would conform.
I like that area. It is charged with hope and memory.
I dressed up in Jacobean costume and took some photos. Banquo this time. Chalke Festival. No rehearsal. An attempt to be pure about cuescript work. A channeling of the work of the remarkable Patrick Tucker. It might be awful it might be wonderful. So far, so Factory. I like these guys very much though and they’ve asked me to be Banquo which is an act of trust so I’m making sure I rise to it. Now I have two rids of dowel and a well sized printout. I’ll be getting the pritt-stick out like they had in the early 1600’s and I’ll be making damn sure I’ve worked what is actually quite a lot of words, learnt my cues, am ready to listen.
At least this time I’m not having to do a Welsh accent. I can’t do Welsh. I’ve got Scottish. But will that be a thing? Och… Who knows. Might be an interesting obstacle. Would they have done it back then? That’s the question.
TC would murder me though, if I did it.
AlBarclay 