Author: albarclay

Today didn’t really go according to plan. I was gonna chill out and learn my lines at home. A friend came over in the morning as he had a self tape and didn’t feel comfortable to do it at his home, a sublet room in Essex.

While doing the tape it was clear he wasn’t in a great place mentally. He’s been in a very manipulative relationship with this live-in landlord. They are renting multiple rooms in a big rented house, paying eighty percent of the rent and needing everyone to know this. They often would have conversations about how “I want you to think of me as an equal,” which immediately proves that they don’t and they never will. There had been a little misunderstanding the day before and it had escalated hugely.

Just as we got the scene in the can, before editing, my mate got a “this isn’t working, you’ll need to be out by the 25th September.” text.

He’s been homeless a few times. No parents. His support network is his friends. And this landlord has just casually pulled the plug over a misunderstanding. I wouldn’t want to sleep another night there. The manipulation was clear to me though, particularly when I saw some message history.

Apparently it’s a pattern. It happened with other people in “the family” in that Essex house. The previous victim did what the landlord was fishing for: “Oh please m’lord no no m’lord I’ll change my ways, from hereinforeward I shall be contrite and hobedient to your desires and wishes oh don’t put me back on the street I’m begging ya.” They were forgiven but it was on their record. My friend shines far too brightly for that. “You absolutely shouldn’t hold taking away somebody’s housing as a threat because you’re upset with them.”

He’s not gonna eat shit for anyone, least of all this classic example of a manipulative narcissist. Problem is, the house is in Essex.

Took about an hour to drive there. Thankfully there’s a lot of room in Bergie.

The “family” were home. Neglected dogs and cats, emotionally manipulated humans, one quite still quite watchful central figure. “They are a millionaire and they have fiscal power,” I am told by my friend for the umpteenth time. Yeah right and they’re running a budget Manson family in a rented terraced house in Essex. “You told me they were a millionaire first, and you told me that three times, before you told me anything else about them. Could it be that that’s a piece of information they want you to be leading with when you think about them?”

Money is power in this system, according to the people who buy into the system. I don’t. He doesn’t. This fucker of a landlord was another one of the fire extinguishers. Some people see candles and pinch them out. There are loads of people like that. Loads. Loads. Look behind you. Loads. My friend is a radiator, and he is delightfully unconventional in a way that is going to cause a certain type of person to want to own him, control him, gently and softly smotheringly extinguish him over time. Loads.

I wouldn’t go in the house. I couldn’t. It was like there was a visible umbra over it. It took me by surprise how hard it hit me but it was palpable. They spend a lot of time in that garden. Who’s buried in there? My mate dodged a bullet. It is a dark dark place. “The cats only come into my room,” he says. “They don’t want to be anywhere else.” Yep. Cats know. They need to get the fuck out too.

The family became aware of me loading Bergman, and they all came out on the driveway, (apart from my friend, up in his room hoovering). They had a loud animated fun conversation pointed directly at me. “LOOK AT US JUST CASUALLY GOING ABOUT OUR NORMAL FUN FAMILY BUSINESS AHHHAAAHAHAHAHA EVERYTHING IS SO FUNNY WE ARE HAPPY AND FUN.”

“They clocked me waiting and put on a show for me!” I tell my friend.

“I wondered what was going on. They never stay on the driveway like that, never. That’s the first time since I’ve been here.” Because they knew I was waiting and they wanted to show me how normal and fun they all are.

My friend hadn’t realised the extent to which everything in that house was manipulation. He tells me “The landlord was fostered. They’ve made their money running a fostering business.” No. The landlord was likely abused. I reckon they’ve made their adulthood transferring that abuse. It’s a common coping strategy and the wrong choice. Loads.

I got home at eleven. My mate is on the sofa, his stuff is in Bergman. Despite my indigestion I was starving and Brian had made spaghetti bolognese. I did a big late eat again. No booze but I’m really hoping I can cope with it. Had a lot of coconut water today and have been very very careful lately so hopefully. Still feels funny down there.

Now I’ve got a friend looking for a home, on my sofa for a bit. He’s ace but we all need to be able to close the door. Anyone?

Bank holiday Sunday but we were rehearsing. I didn’t realise the extent to which I have become a mercenary. But I’m worth it. You want me to do the acting thing I put everything on hold for? Pay me. But this is my Alma-Mater and perhaps I owe it some sort of debt of gratitude. But I’m not grafting like I normally would.

They need some costume. I have some costume. As with many low budget theatrical things, they are willing to pay the clothes. If I find some clothes maybe they will pay the money I want for my time. We work the angles.

They haven’t put a Shakespeare on in Speech Room since forever. Six years. The entire cohort of students will never have seen a Shakespeare in Speech Room. It’s a tremendous drop on the part of the school. In this environment, when the great and the good are telling Fatima that her next job might be in cyber and she just doesn’t know it yet, their children have had their early access to culture pulled out from under them which will only compound the idiocy. But yeah, the system tells us that your child becoming an actor is somehow a parenting failure.

I don’t think the OH Play has ever been wonderful, but it can be charming, it might be memorable. I was packed off to Cymbeline when I was fourteen to write a punishment essay review of it. I enjoyed it. My review was a summary of the action. Many reviews still are in major broadsheets. Back then it was a curiosity that I understood it, as much as that I enjoyed it. Dad was shelling out for me to have a refined education. There was an opportunity for me to start to crack into the idea of Shakespeare as a story told by humans in a room, with the audience.

Even the guys in the Old Harrovian Julius Caesar company I’m in mostly hadn’t heard of the fact that, before The Globe was finished, in 1993, the first show went on in the earthworks of the theatre. Sam Wanamaker, who had driven for it his whole life, fifty years after he had come to London and been appalled there was no Globe, Sam was in a tiny audience for Taming of the Shrew. By Harrow boys. Directed by a man who sadly didn’t covet my arse so I never got a look on on his shows. I didn’t go to his memorial the other day. Sam though, he saw that strange raw young show in the place where his dreams were finally coalescing. He died in the December of that year. That show happened because of the tradition of an Elizabethan theatre in Speech Room, and Globe Education knowing about it. Now the costumes are mothballed and un-cared for. The pillars are gone, perhaps forever. Speech Room is just … a room for speeches.

I’ve done enough speaking today though. I’m lying back listening to an orchestra in the park playing film themes. They just did Jurassic Park. “There are dinosaurs there are dinosaurs there are din-ooo- saaauuurs!”

I feel like one right now. Another early bed eh? All sorts of parties I could go to. Nah.

I spent the day in The Harrow School Speech Room. There’s this old tradition of turning it into an Elizabethan Theatre. They’ve got rid of the columns now though and mothballed the costumes so we are doing this modern dress, more’s the pity. Toby is clever though. The son of an English teacher who helped ignite my love of Shakespeare – we did As You Like It. I didn’t understand it in the slightest as an acting text through him, but the story made sense and there were lots of interesting little observations. His son is a good director and a good actor. I’m glad he’s flying the flag for this tradition. I’ve been out of the mix for ages as just didn’t have the time or inclination to do it, but I need to learn Marc Antony for The Factory anyway, and there’s nothing like a deadline where an audience is gonna know damn well if you haven’t put the work in.

There on the stage, observed by portraits of some of the better remembered alumni – Churchill, who didn’t enjoy it when he was at school, Jawaharlal Nehru who said that his time at Harrow helped solidify his anti-Imperialism. Various other dignitaries. One of them will play the Soothsayer, his first entrance beneath his portrait. They all stare down over the ranks of chairs as we hack our way. First half today. I’m quiet right up until I have to do Friends Romans Countrymen and then just a bit of shouting and I’m in the pink.

There are plenty of people who have been at this OH game for decades. Ricky Ritchie I remember from when I was a boy. He does a great job at Cinna the Poet. I never felt we made sense of it at The Factory, as our Cinna always seemed to know he was gonna get torn apart. Ricky is playing to win, like we should have been. You find your lessons everywhere.

Late finish though, 9pm. I’m knackered. I’ve run a hot bath as I’m gonna suggest to Toby that my servant might help me with lifting Caesar. There’s no spare flesh on Ollie, he’s skinny and buff. But I’m not gonna fuck my back for the next ten years doing firemans lifts at my old school. I need people to refer to me as “spritely” when I’m eighty. Belly is gonna have to go.

On which subject I bought porridge and bananas and some fish cakes at Tesco. Came out with two bags for less than I might have spent on an oven lasagne and a bottle of wine. This having to watch my food thing might be a good moneysaver, which is for the best because I keep getting emails from my agent to say they’ve taken the pencil off.

Bath is run, and I made myself a chamomile infusion and it is revolutionary. New things. Gotta keep finding them. I’ve largely exhausted the cornucopia of booze options. Ooh a nice cup of flowers in water? Don’t knock it. I feel relaxed and happy.

This whole acid reflux malarkey is getting old now and I’m going to have to admit because of it that perhaps I am as well. Time was I could just run into brick walls. Last night I had a pint while I was watching the old men play fiddle. Didn’t think much about it. Pint of export strength lager on an empty stomach. Then I went and bought a hot Thai curry. “Make it Thai hot please.” They obliged. Pretty much the instant I finished the curry I climbed into bed and slept until 3am when I woke up more bilious than ever. I didn’t want to go back to sleep in case I ended up gargling myself to death so I say up and read until it was time to feed Tessy. Since then I just went about my day in a kind of vague sleepy miasma, occasionally belching. Lou had honey and chamomile tea, which helped, and little turmeric and ginger pills which I pilfered. Gaviscon is too much of a mask now this is a regular affliction. And with the context of last night, I can’t fool myself that it is anything other than the fault of my proclivities. Time, it seems, to adjust things.

Not eating rich food and spicy food washed down with meat and ale, you say? Very well, doctor. How about this Guinea Fowl? No? Hmm.

I went to Café Rust, where I am often to be found over my morning cheese and death plate. I unwillingly ordered myself a granola. Yogurt and fruit and grains. Oh my. I didn’t want a coffee. Wasn’t sure it would stay down.

Lunch was a sweet potato pie with peas and mash. Nothing challenging there. It went down without too much comment. Lou got back to Brighton at 8 and we met at Pompoko. It’s a little cash only family ramen place. I just had a three blandest rice bowl I could find, with chicken on it.

The next year is going to be an adventure as I look after my angry belly by learning how to sustain myself without ingesting lit matches and bat heads of a Tuesday. Anything new is an adventure and abstention is just as much a choice as indulgence, with just as many experiences attached to it. If I’m serious about outliving my dear departed mother and her brother, the next few years will be crucial. I’m not necking vodka out of the bottle, sure. But I’ve got loads still to do. Tristan’s grandad just hit 100. He’s an actor. There’s hope for us all. But I always said I’d ease off at fifty and instead I got sad and started overeating and having silly empty tummy beers.

Sitting in a room waking up while people concentrate all around me for money. That was how the day started. It’s a strange thing to be good at, but I’ve done it on and off for twenty years this invigilating malarkey. I can do it standing on my head.

As soon as I was finished I jumped into Bergie and shifted home. I gave the cats double food – it’ll have to last them until tomorrow. Packed up some underwear. Charger. Toothpaste. Contact lenses. And got in a TRAIN. Only a few quid if you book it in advance and I knew about this. If I wanna go anywhere, Lou has Joni now, her little green car. Chances are tomorrow I’m just gonna lounge by the sea and look at lines. Need to be close to off book on Saturday. I’m not gonna drive everywhere, everything in Brighton is walkable from Kemptown.

I went to The Thomas Kemp briefly for easy food, and they had seven people playing Irish pub music, largely unobserved, doing it for the joy the practice and hopefully some money. Fiddles, mostly. Really evocative and nicely done, but I didn’t want to stay there too long as I don’t get much time with Tessy these days. If I’m gonna be here I’m gonna play with this fluffy idiot even if she’s an attack cat. She just got discombobulated chasing a moth on top of a clothes rail, and when I picked her up and brought her back to stability she considered mangling my calf in recompense. Thankfully she thought better of it as she was pretty stuck. Just didn’t want to admit it. She’s quick, and if she wants to she’ll attach herself with claws and teeth to a soft bit of you. I’ve largely learnt to read the signs but we can’t be on full alert forever.

This flat is peaceful and calm, a real sanctuary for a damaged cat. I’m about to turn in and no need for sleepy drink, I sleep like a log here and a good thing too as Tessy will be up at the first sniff of dawn and will be yelling at me no later than 5.30am. It’s already too late. I’m off to bed so I can enjoy seaside light and a warmer day tomorrow please thank you God.

My dad was very faddy about his health and occasionally I channel him. I wasn’t working today, just absorbing lines and chilling out, so I ventured north to The Kings Road and somehow found myself in Holland and Barrett, which is lethal. All I meant to get was a cup of coffee from the patriotic coffee shop. I ended up with all sorts of gumph.

Bee Propolis. It’s good for your um. It helps with and and. So obviously I bought it. Inflammation? I dunno. Just felt like eating some bees.

Cod Liver Oil. In a capsule nowadays instead of an unwelcome teaspoon attached to grandma. Rebranded as fish oil as we’ve eaten all the cod. It’s good for your brain? Joints? Fish to wash down the bees.

Multi vitamins. That old standard. Buy ’em, eat ’em. As a kid I used to crunch up the cricket ball shaped Sanatogen junior vitamin, a comforting taste still accessible by drinking a grape and ginseng Purdeys. Mum forced me to eat two a day. I volunteer myself to the Purdeys. I like you can still drink it out of glass. Happy to pay the premium.

Vitamin C. We are all supposed to neck one of those bad boys daily aren’t we? Ascorbic acid. Immune system? General useful health stuff.

Collagen. I’m going off piste now. Cowskin to give me luscious cuticles and to make my last remaining three hairs springy like the mane of a buffalo. Beef to balance the fishy bees.

Gut microbe stuff. Why? Pro-biotic nonsense… It was nicely packaged and my gut is misbehaving. There’s calcium in there and kiwi fruit, weirdly. Billions of bacteria. “Friendly” bacteria, according to the bottle, which is mildly horrifying.

Milk Thistle. It won’t magically fix my fatty liver but it might help it heal while I roll away from alcohol in the sharp hope I can try and outlive my mother and my uncle.

I’ve already got Vitamin D. There’s plenty of sun anyway. I’ve filled up my spectacular wheel of pills and now every morning there’s a reason to have breakfast so I can then fill my stomach with the Holland and Barrett madness. Booked a bit of corporate work today so I can be slightly less buttoned up but I’m still worrying about the old wonga. Invigilating tomorrow and then a brief sojourn to the seaside. I feel generally quite dodgy, bilious and fatigued. Early beds, long baths, rest when I can get it and a cornucopia of supplements and I’ll be back to my hyperactive self in no time.

Not now though. Hot bath. Sleepy drink. Zzzz

Ladies. Gentlemen. Everything in between. Please hold a little bit of your wonder aside. I have a tale to tell.

For, once, upon a Teweresstag, the day of Tew/Tyr, the god of war and justice, a thing happenED.

Far far away in the old times, auditions would happen where the humans would be in the rooms, available to each one another, present to read and do communicationes. But then the COVID came bringing fire to all presence and togetherness and LO the self tape prevailēd wherein TRICKSY FUCKKLERETH could fool all the nice ones. And behold Tricksy fuckereth took majority of jobbbes. For the room is being a good room to knaw iff acter be kunt, whereas tayp we cannat knaw but the TRICKES so do SHIEN!

This tag, this Tewestayg, maiself wennet to a Diorama Studio in the central of this towwen.

In stewdeow ai performered an AUDIT-SHEONNE wherin for a Scheottlandish playye off Wilam Shagspar ai pertenndered for being Ross.

Wat iss AMAYYZANNG for shur is for thatt effen iff yes it be a recalling so still it happen in the person and presence of the other humans. Mane yeers gon wee could knaw the acters wee witenessed in werk, they hadd alle bene mett in personne! Not juste an ayejentt given alle clientes blinde! Anned so, this tag, ACETERS WERR WITENESSED FOR AUDIT-SHEONNE. Ringe belles! The anceyentt wayyes comme retorrn.

Mayhaps it wille be jobbe to comefor ich. Man mussen hope and beleeyve despit fukked industree and sheeitt locke foreever.

May thiss be weritten doon forr knawing, wans stil in werreld coms in person AUDIT-SHEONNE for manne and eek wumman also. Stil itt com, and gud peeopul hellpe reeding. Not fergotan be practis off no-screene acter mayk choyce for in reel room. Mayhap in Futur COVID be fergat and memorry be that until meeting sumwan, no way of telling if he is Kunt for making alle show shitte.

Butt… Mayhap otheres knawwen for not beyyen kunt wheras alle for mich iss hopen it iss sene. Behold I do nat knaw this mann but Hull Trucke, Boltone Derby? Soundeth much excellente. Mayhappen it falles well. Ach gott.

Mussen WAAAIIT. Wishen ich nat for wayeteng. Wannet knaw for thraw moneths werk kan bee. Nat for sniffen, aye? Fengers crassed. Knawwen be wannaderfuelll. Butt oneley iff yass!!!

—

Nice to have a real in the room audition again at last. It has literally been years.

Some friends of Brian and I are in town, Rob and Amy. I wanna go hang with them in the pub but right now my entire system is rejecting the booze. I don’t want it. And I’m not yet in a place where I can go be with boozy people and not step in. So I’ve put myself to bed.

It’s not even seven, but I’ve got a recall audition tomorrow after a dayjob shift at the old invigilation game. It’s resit week. I was there today presiding over the usual shitshow. Loads of them didn’t even show up. These are the ones who have to take it again so often there’s plenty of stuff going on. Nice lot though, and only ten of them but six different exams so it was a paperwork bonanza and I had to stay on top of it. They’ve frozen my card for access to lots of places because I’ve been working there on and off for so long they just automatically reset things like with a driving licence. I first did this in like 2003 when Abigail got me in shortly after we left drama school. She’s far too resourceful to still be ticking over with it, she jumped ship decades ago but I’m still letting it tick over. It takes less than ten minutes to get to work from my bed. On days that would otherwise be unused, I can make a bit of positive stack and be in a concentrated room for a few hours. It’s a decent enough place to remember lines so long as I remember not to say them out loud.

Early hot bath despite the temperature and now it’s a toss up between a few hours reading Infinite Jest or a few hours playing Skyrim. I think I’ll veer towards the paper as it is compulsive. Great big massive fucking tome, but it has been on my shelf for years and my last two books were both Stephen King so now’s the time. Teenage Lord of the Rings enthusiast means I’m at home to a fat book. It’s easy to forget to read books with all this information in our pocket, but like cash it’s both use it or lose it and ancient.

I’m tired. Happy I made the decision to take care of myself this evening. Hopefully will start to feel a bit less heavy before too long. Boundless energy has been my schtick for too long for me to be turning down a night on the town for a book and a bath. But pajamas and slippers are calling tonight and I’m gonna hear that call and listen to myself within it.

It’s nice to just sink into Shakespeare awhile. He wrote complicated and nuanced things about the human condition. He invented bits of language, he thought about things and then put them into words. He reworked existing works but with a strong eye to putting his own stamp on it. He was a great eye, quite rightly thought of as one of the all time greatest. And what he did is really getting into sharp relief now.

We all know by now how incredibly dumb the vast majority of people on his planet are. We no longer have to struggle to survive, we have no natural predators, we don’t need to be in any way clever to even get basic sustenance, to survive in general. And the majority of people are puddings. If all the infrastructure was pulled for a week, most of us would be dead. No water for starters, so people would try and drink the sea or tidal rivers after they’d killed each other grabbing bottles from supermarkets. But more of them wouldn’t even think of it until too late and would die wearing their stolen trainers.

Now these Large Language Models are helping us do the thinking and it will make even the clever people a bit dumber. There’ll be an interim generation of recent students who didn’t learn anything cos they could pass off LLM essays as their own. By now the professors are all going to be savvy about it so people will be reluctantly learning again, but it does feel as if, generally, if people could push a button that meant they never had to think or care about anything again, lots of people would just push it.

I don’t think LLMs are going to do what the people selling them say they will do. But I have started to see so much content on social media that is made by them. I’m looking out for them but they’re in busy l video form now too. Rabbits on a trampoline. I sniffed that out just as I know rabbits aren’t like crows – they looked too conscious of the play aspect. But… people ask LLMs to make these things and with a pretty basic prompt you can start to generate stuff that will pass as real at a cursory glance. It pushes all of our critical thinking muscles into overdrive, particularly if the thing we are watching plays to our bias. “Yay I like animals having fun, this must be real.” The possibilities for manipulation are off the scale, not just because people can make convincing fake videos but because people in compromising real videos can just say they’re AI and take no responsibility.

The idea that we live in a “post truth” world really rings now. Now we can have convincing fakes appeal to our biases, it is very nearly at the stage where we can’t pick the fakes from the real ones at all. It’s too late to regulate, so we are gonna have to just stop relying on anything we see that doesn’t come from a creditable source, but then the sources! All the papers in this country carry heavy bias. They can’t be trusted to bring us the truth. Reuters etc are supposed to be immune to bias, but they still have a perspective, they still have an editor. Pages like this are entirely biased. We are close to just honestly not knowing what the fuck is actually happening anywhere unless we can see it with our own eyes. It’s not a happy place to be…

The bullshit generators often have short memories. A few weeks ago I got served a load of stuff about an alien spaceship on a collision course with earth that is gonna arrive in November. November will come and go, no alien spaceship, but there’ll be stuff predicted for March. The amount of times I’ve been given dates for things that are going to happen… They never do. Cos you can’t predict the future, kids, and I tell you that as a tarot enthusiast.

I don’t even know why I bother going on social media anymore. Twitter was fun for a while, now it’s a Gutter. And more and more of these AI slop videos and stories, I don’t mind the ones that announce themselves – they’re like shit cartoons. But I detest the ones trying to pass themselves off as true. Keanu Reeves and Elon Musk arguing. Celebrities doing nice things. Celebrities doing nasty things. Articles that would be irrelevant noise anyway but made all the worse by being inventions. But practice I guess for “this is the democrat candidate punching a baby on CCTV” “here’s Jeremy Corbyn kissing a picture of Hitler with tongues”. Elections are gonna be an absolute shit show with this tech. You don’t need the truth to damage a reputation. You just need an idea.

I’m enjoying being useful to this delightful group of people, just to be Marc Antony and to try and make people care about those fuckers killing my best friend. I’ll have to have it all learnt by next time, sure. Our director Toby is the son of one of my more memorable English teachers. MJD. He was good at detail. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Such a strange thing to be back at that place. But it was only really the unevolved turds in my year group in my house that made the whole experience hard for me. They haven’t evolved and added to that they’ve doubled down on their lack of evolution. I bear them no ill will as largely I haven’t the headspace. Hating them would be like hating farts for being stinky. They were just kids being basic. I was in a beautiful place, with wonderful opportunities. It just happened that the people in my immediate vicinity had no real imagination. My biggest sadness is that when I got pulled into a reunion dinner they were still stuck in who they used to be.

The other day my mate Dan put it better than I could have: “We were both at Hogwarts, but Al was in Slytherin.”

But yeah I’m back, doing Shakespeare. It is a lovely thing. I’ve got a lot of learning to do as nobody wants to look like a cunt.

This evening I’m knackered. I had a half price Domino pizza thing so I bought one and froze the other. Now it’s not even nine and honestly I think I’m just gonna turn in. Boo has decided she lives on me no matter how I’m configured, and perhaps that’s my lesson for today, that all my concerns and curiosities are nothing when compared to my worthiness as a catpillow.

I’m feeling sad though tonight. Is it chemical or is it, mayhaps, that the air in London tonight is saying autumn? Persephone is still with us for a few weeks dammit. Either way, bed bed bed.