Author: albarclay

It is much quicker to get to Smithfield Market from mine if you go by an ebike rental than any other means. It’s summer, the first of August, high summer, the month named after the emperor who was in charge when Jesus popped up. He was another Libra/Virgo cusp. Like him, this is my favourite month.

“Everything dries up in August,” is received information.

Back when it was in person auditions, I would finally start to get seen for things in August because they needed a me type and the ones with the major agents were all up at Edinburgh so they couldn’t go to Soho and do something humiliating for the possibility of money. Now it’s self tapes, so I guess the same old same old is more possible. But I’m still hopeful. It has always been a lucky month, August. I tried to ignore the poster for Cumbers and Coleman once again reinforcing the idea that there are only about twelve actors. I’m here, there are jobs, something is going to give. Yes it’s the same the same the same forever forever forever. But we hope.

I have finally auditioned for a theatre that you’ve heard of. For over twenty years, and now having worked at the RSC, I have never auditioned for a theatre you have heard of. Last month I did. I’ve got a recall too, yay. Hopefully there’ll be some work at the end of it. Thank fuck. This industry is cruel, casual and arbitrary. I graduated in 2002. I’ve worked loads and with excellent practitioners. Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark. But …! A good theatre up north put me on the list for an actual audition. Normally it’s a straight offer or nothing. Maybe I’ll be able to go through a process and fit into a company and do the thing I am here for. That’s what I dreamed when I left Guildhall, but the auditions never ever came. Let’s see how this first one goes, twenty years too late. I’m used to disappointment as there’s been plenty of film stuff which is tricky. That was my first job, a film. Is the industry really that short sighted that film people can’t audition for theatre? I can report back with confidence: “YES.”

I went to Smithfield to hang out with James. James and I did theatre back in the day, for people you’ve never heard of. I turned down a ridiculously lucrative corporate training opportunity “you’ll never get this again” because of press night for a show where I was paid virtually nothing, up in Surbiton. Sliding doors, but I knew I wanted the performer life, I needed it. James was in that show. Now he does a proper job but he was there at the nexus even if he didn’t know about it. I turned down guaranteed big bucks for … for this and I’m still struggling.

Today we ate at St John’s though and I’m happy to be part of £200 for lunch as I’ve got so very good at dayjobberising. We had a whole crab and loads of good stuff and a bottle of wine. I am not broke at the moment but fuck, I feel the lack of that training job I turned down. Life, eh?

This evening I went to the press night of something that is part of the problem. This is the sort of thing I was swept up into, where people eat your heart and your work. Loads of wonderful clever and skillful actors who are probably on an hourly rate because it is technically facilitation, and their undeniable skill is being vampirised by production. It was incredibly well produced, for sure. It was glorious. The fault was in the execution, the creative side. Whoever is marshalling these underpaid workers hasn’t quite got their finger on what makes things interesting for actual real people. Ok, I asked lots of workers what their hourly was. The carnival people are on less than I thought anyone worked for these days. The bar aren’t on much more. It’s barely a living wage. I cannot cannot respect anyone, particularly in something trying to pretend to be theatre, when they don’t pay their workers properly, particularly when the ticket price is tiered. You get a special wristband if you pay more. That means the actors do more with you if you’re rich. No amount of enthusiasm will get you as an audience over that border it’s posh wristband or it’s steerage. That’s capitalism embedded in an industry that has always been free of hierarchy and has to be to work. It makes me sick to my stomach. And suddenly I see why this thing they still weirdly call “immersive” instead of “tiered” has appealed to all the various narcissists I’ve known over the years. It’s a new form of hierarchy: lords and serfs. It’s a fucked model and it came out of goodwill.

Burn it.

And I’m off to bed.

Home and up early to lay down a tape. Trying to keep it understated as I get the sense this one has been round and round and the notes ask for it to be understated. I was tired though. Got it in 2 minutes before the deadline and my agent downloaded it almost immediately. Just in time. Sad to miss the last night of the festival, but prioritising in person auditions have caused me far more inconvenience back in the day. I will still fly the flag for the self tape audition. I got most of the festival.

Then I had mistaken today for a bank holiday and having discovered it wasn’t, I saw no reason not to change my plans. So I watched all the highlights for the final test match at The Oval, England vs India. It has been an amazing series but the Indian team stepped up at the end of yesterday and today and they worked so incredibly hard to force the series into the third ever drawn test series in the history of test matches. They won game 5 by 8 runs. Sure, Chris Woakes came on with his arm in a sling and knew he couldn’t face a ball. It was nail biting stuff and if Woakes hadn’t taken that fall before his first innings he would easily have gotten the 8 runs over two innings that we needed, but that’s the game. Largely I’m happy to see a drawn series if I look at the quality of the matches throughout. Absolutely brilliant cricket, as it should be. I only like test cricket, I like it because it is an endurance game, and I respect both sides utterly in that match up.

To honour the Indian victory I bought a great big takeaway Dishoom for Brian Maddy and I. I ate until there was no room left and there’ll be stuff to heat up tomorrow. Even after just a couple of nights in a field it has been lovely having access to my soft comfy bed and the friendly weird cats.

Tomorrow back in the world. Today was recovery. Worst possible time for an audition, when you’re knackered, but I’m okay with what I sent – perhaps lacking in spark but these are unnamed characters, they don’t want spark, they are doing a job in the script that pushes the story. I made choices that hopefully reflected that.  I’m back to the drawing board now so I’ll take all comers.

Home home home! I’m absolutely bushed. It was cold in that field at night.

I woke with the light cooking me out, trying to lie in, but out by about half eight. Looking up at the sky I could see it was about to rain. No more festivals this year, I didn’t want to pack up a damp tent for a season, so I took advantage of the window of dryness. Much activity in the campsite as everyone in our little band had the same idea.

We were loaded into the cars in record time. I’ve never had everyone so ready to leave so early on a Sunday. I’ve left on Sunday a few times over the years, it just becomes necessary if life things are happening. But this year we all did.

Gen is prosecuting tomorrow morning so she had to study the case, she set her laptop up in a sheltered area by the lake and worked all morning. Dedication. I got back onto the frankincense. I don’t know why that seemed the right thing to do but it really did. That was my festival thing this year, swinging a thurible full of incense. There were very few peaceful calm areas where I could set up and read tarot, so apart from a few very lovely readings for people it was largely just cleansing smoke. Next time I’ll bring bigger charcoal discs and a gauze, and I’ll have different cleansing smokes for different times. Sage on Friday, Palo Santo Saturday, Frankincense Sunday. That seems the right combination.

My fingers are a little tender now from poking hot things.

We watched a couple of acts today. Generally though the music isn’t the draw at Wilderness. If they get the big bands they attract the lager lot so they don’t get them. Let them go to Reading whilst we get the throwbacks and the kooky chilled trancey stuff. Sometimes it’s incredible. Bjork was off the scale a few years ago. Often there is something ethereal and delightful and weird, but this year if it was there I missed it. But I wasn’t in a very consuming mood. I wanted to kick back, but I also wanted to shift energy. No Wilderness Orchestra, which was a sadness. Another orchestra, and lots of people talking that perhaps we were supposed to know. I recognised some of them, and others could tell they were well known by the fact that they weren’t particularly trying to be engaging.

I’ve had a lovely few days and I do feel refreshed. I think the unexpected experience yesterday was net positive – even if at the time it was hard work. Good people. Still a lovely festival even despite the corporate takeover.

Everyone has gone on the ride. I thought I’d take the opportunity to write something. Supergrass is playing the end of their headline set. Much of the music has been a throwback this year, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. We weren’t feeling Supergrass though.

Today was a long long sunny day and I kinda called it a day of work even though I’m not officially on a walkabout this year. I spent the morning reading tarot for people and wafting a Frankincense censer around. Had some lovely interactions with strangers through those remarkable cards, and also saw some old friends. John Limb, bless his face, coming out at me when we were at the cricket.

I used to do the commentary at the horse racing here. The cricket is still going. It’s an attempt at making cricket more fun, largely by allowing people to streak. I think I’d have been fine if I hadn’t met lovely John, who crossed my palms with a mushroom. Sometimes they hit you hard. “It’s Hawaiian,” he told me. He didn’t say “It’s gonna blow your face off.”

I spent most of the afternoon lying on my back near the lake reading the messages in the trees and contemplating life the universe and everything. I think I’ve got it sorted now guys, if I only I could remember it…

It took me a long long time to come back, like weeks, 5 hours, forever? Eventually I walked back into my own skin and now they are all spinning in the air to the sound of Supergrass while I write to you here, oh constant reader.

Ride is coming to an end. Time to plug back into these glorious people in this happy place. Last night here until next time…

—

It’s very late, I thought I’d be asleep by now but there was good dancing that needed to be done and I had my glosticks and my Frankincense thurible. It’s amazing how comforting fucked people seem to find the smell of Frankincense. “It reminds me of childhood,” said many, which puts into perspective how much more secular we are becoming, generation to generation.

We are off into the festival.

We started an “overheard at the festival” group just as, from within the bubble, this festival and the clientele kinda puncture themselves on purpose.

“It’s funny cos the most hardcore place is the bubble tent” was one man this afternoon walking away from a slightly earnest we choir mistress.

“Would you mind stopping burning that next to the kids,” “It’s wood.”

“He told me he had a system with roulette and he kept on putting his arm around me and then he lost like sixty quid in a few minute.”

“I realised after I did it I thought oh God I’ve just given the ADHD kid caffeine and now I guess I’ve got to deal with it.”

“No she was the prime minister’s aide though so she was in a position to know…” (this mostly remarkable as it was a conversation at 4am walking past our tents.

“Yeah I wasn’t gonna do it and then I saw the twenny five k so I just … kissed everyone in the room.” “Everyone?” “Ya everyone.” There is no context in which this one makes sense…

“Oh these aren’t mushrooms these are fertility pills.”

These were just a few. It’s a fertile ground.

Tomorrow I’ll get to know people around the festival better doing my readings with Alice’s deck, just doing my way to add value, and find a connectivity at the same time. It’s a lovely practice, and well worn in these woods.

…

Trying to publish. Internet very choppy now. Send in the hounds.

I have slept very many nights in this particular field. In this vicinity. A country house grounds with high acreage. Every year it gets bigger. Wilderness Festival again. Usually I sleep in public camping despite my accreditation as the lakes are more accessible. This time I’m actually in performer. Which is weird as this year I’m really just an assistant with a free pass.

I’ve brought loads of woowoo stuff. My ADHD is off the scale, I can’t be here and not be adding value… I’ve already given loads of people glowsticks kinda irrespective of whether they were welcome. Just doing something. But I’ve got some serious kit with me.

Tonight I can write from my tent. Internet is gonna go to tits though tomorrow. If it doesn’t I’ll be very surprised. The bulk of people come tomorrow and it already feels crowded. The walled garden used to be a calm little spot, so now they call it “The Riddle” and some idiot sticks a sticker over your phone camera to try and make it feel special and it is a load of more of the same but with stoners working through the same old empty lines under the apple trees.

On a first night I’m a bit perplexed. It feels like the soul of this festival has been brutally consumed and regurgitated. So much alcohol branding. Shiny shiny BUY STUFF. I’m gonna reserve judgement. But lots of the woowoo stuff I brought is about cleansing, and it feels like there’s a parasitic infection here that needs some work. That’s how I can add value. Not the glowsticks. Just the glow.

Tomorrow I’ll stay straight and be there for my friend. Then I’ve got various mycological wonders that might have affected my thinking this evening in small quantities. Generators and electric noise and I know only too well how it all fits together. You don’t get the lights in the darkness without the fire and you can’t harness the fire without the artifice. And artifice comes in so many forms but it’s always artifice. Nature will win in the end, but some people make a lot of noise in this denial phase. This festival. I think we need festivals, living like we do. But I wonder if this is the festival we need now. There are QR codes on the wall of “The Riddle”. Everywhere I look there are hooks for the unwary. I brought cash but nobody takes it. “Isn’t it supposed to be cashless here?” “We’ll see how that works out when everything goes down.” Adapt or die. We need to adapt back to cash fast, generally. Japan never lost it and we can learn from them.

Anyway I’m likely not making any sense and that was a little one I grew myself years ago. Thanks pal.

5am and the Stratford upon Avon polyester pillow is nagging my face. I wake, snoozy. My brain switches on as I wander through the unfamiliar room for water. I remember I need to be in London by 8. I had totally forgotten. Fuck. So much for coffee with Jenny.

5.30 and I’m behind the wheel, no contact lenses, putting them in as I drive.

6.00 way too fast in the slow lane as I undertake all the reversed drivers hogging middle as they haven’t woken up yet on their way to work. Rush hour motorways are always reversed. A couple of people think I’m racing them personally so I let them win. Mostly I get home in remarkable time.

7.45 I pull into my parking spot and park atrociously. The caretaker’s daughter is there with a pair of marigolds and a bin bag looking worried.

8.00 and I’ve realised that José’s daughter is not a chip off the old block. I’ve known her dad for decades and he gets stuck in. She won’t come into the bin room at all. Spiders. I park the car better and steel myself.

8:15 and I’ve got her to help me rig a hose across the front of the front door. She’s worried it’s not a perfect seal on the tap. It’s summer.

I’m in a tiny little subterranean brick room that hasn’t been cleaned for so long there’s mold growing on the walls from old food items grown half sentient. I’ve carried up all the bags and bins in there and left them on the street. I’m spraying decades of crap out here. It’s empty but it’s no less vile for that. I’m not sure what half of the stuff I’m pressure washing into the drain is. I think some of it might well be rat poo. I need to make fucking sure there’s none of that left before the inspection, as I’m thinking it might be twenty years old. Those little nuggets are unmistakable though, like little shitbeans.

8:45 and I’m drenched in sweat and water vapour and Timon has been woken up by my exclamations. “Can you pick the stuff up that’s too big for the drain?” That was me to the benign but clueless daughter. No. No she won’t. Squeamish. Really not what I need. She won’t touch anything without marigolds. I get it. She’s working. I’m doing this for… Reasons. I explain to Timon what I’m doing and why, as far as I’m able. I don’t expand the complicated issues around entitlement, I just mean practically speaking. “They wouldn’t have seen the rat, those bin men.” Timon tells me. “I know its routine. It’s never there at that time of the morning.” Hmmm. “The rat.” Spoken of like an old friend.

So. There’s a rat. Fuck it. I thought it was just laziness. I’ve been in a wet room with rat crap for half an hour. I go up to my flat and very thoroughly wash my hands.

9am and we’ve taken the hose out and I’m using a broom and a dustpan to get the water and the stubborn bits out of there . I’m being very thorough. I’m wishing I had a mask now but it’s too late either way.

9.15 and I’m soaked to the skin mostly with sweat but also spray. Coffee. It’s as good as I’m gonna get it. Who knows when the inspector is gonna show. I put back the poison traps and send off José’s daughter. Couldn’t have done it without her, helping wind the hose, turning it on and off. She’s not a waste of space at all, just not a caretaker. I wait.

Man from the council comes at 11. “Definitely no rodents,” I tell him. “They just saw damage on the bags from the crows, honest guv.” He is not completely satisfied that the place is rodent proof but he’s good enough to see I’ve been working on it and he knows I’m gonna finish the job, cos I am and he sees the fire in my eyes. I’m gonna get some gauze and metal plating and my wazzer, block the clever fucker out even if I can’t trap him. José will be back by then too. Between the two of us we surely can trap a London river rat. They’re smart but we’ve got thumbs.

Council guy tells me he will give the bin guys the all clear. They’ll go back there until they find another excuse.

Timon lives opposite the bins. He’s renting. “I guess I got money off cos of the rat,” he says. He’s hard to judge, laconic. Writer. Does commercials and stuff. He’s plugged the drainpipe with glass bottles. “I heard it running up the drain pipe last night. Thought I’d try and trap it in there.”

I look up the length of the pipe against the wall. Rat is on the roof now then. From there it can access the whole block, so perhaps we are shot of the fucker… But they are creatures of habit. I’m gonna block that door.

11:30 and I start my day.

I haven’t packed for Wilderness but I’ve been pretty busy all day and now I just came from a lovely evening meeting. Creative ideas and potential involvement in a lovely thing.

I’m pooped. I’m running a bath. Don’t want to do anything else today but sleep so I’ll pack tomorrow. This day was over before it started. Made a lovely club sandwich for lunch and Brian cut me in on his dinner which is for the best as I’m virtually a zombie now.

I’ve googled the early symptoms of Weils Disease and I’ll bring one of my spare courses of antibiotics to Wilderness as I’m not planning on doing my liver any more harm than absolutely necessary what with all the acid reflux.

Wishy washy. Yuk. It’s funny the things I do without being paid. “Mother, Father, I am going to be an ACTOR.” And I got my wish, with all the trimmings.

I did The Winter’s Tale at university, when I honestly didn’t know I was born. I just saw the first half up in Stratford and it was so human and upsetting and brilliant that I had to take a time out. I know it’s about to go to Bohemia, the play is 50% Othello 50% As You Like It. I left before it all got pastoral. But I needed to process it. Madeline Appiah absolutely destroyed me in the court scene as Hermione. I learnt and delivered Leontes aged twenty fuck-all to a summertime crowd at Whiteknights Open Air Theatre – (some scaff and masking we threw together on campus). In retrospect it was an intellectual exercise. I needed my training at Guildhall, I could speak with the confidence of an Harrovian but there was no real understanding or meaning there. I don’t know how anyone could forgive my Leontes. I don’t know how we are going to be able to forgive the one we have just seen, but I know this production is all heart. I will almost certainly come back when I’m more emotionally robust and watch the second half. It’s an extraordinary production. I had to take a time out. “Time” is seeded in throughout, a human narration presence. They use water in a shinto way – my sadness at Kumano Kodo is that the path you had to wade to through rice paddies has been health and safetied into a long bridge across water. The symbolism still works, but stronger by far if you have to wade there and back. There was wading aplenty in this production and it really works. It just broke me unexpectedly.

I’ve been up here teaching Shakespeare to Americans. It buttereth the parsnips. It was a good workshop, in the little Methodist church here. I was going to drive home but my evening meeting was cancelled so now I’m here in this little knocking shop hotel outside the city. I’ve time travelled to the nineteen seventies. Nobody is having sex next door though so it should be reasonably peaceful and then tomorrow I can go back home and pack, ahead of a few more nights in a field. Summer summer summer. I hope it doesn’t rain this weekend.

Back into town tomorrow briefly. I’m happy to be mobile at the mo. Beginning to feel human again and integrating with the world. Good to have the workshop as a focus. Dropped my phone though and it means I’m cheesegrating my finger when I swipe type. It never rains but it pours.

The bins in my block go into a downstairs room. To bring the bags up, you have to use some stairs. They are secure there.

If the bags go on the street, they get attacked by clever crows.

Nobody has taken the bin bags out for the last few weeks because one of the bin men filled in a form saying we had vermin. They were using the crow chewed bags to pretend they thought it was rats. If you say “vermin” you can avoid doing a job you don’t want to do. It’s a common strategy in this city.

We got all the bags on the street this morning and then I spent hours on the phone to the council and ended up paying £30 to have someone come and inspect our bin room on Wednesday. I’ll have to be there early in the morning and I’ll have to make sure the place is totally empty. The caretaker is on holiday and this sort of thing either gets done by him or me or nobody. It’s Chelsea. ’twas ever thus. Most people don’t actually know what “work” means, even if they’re earning plenty.

I waited until ten past twelve when they finally showed up with their van. I stood there making sure they took the lot. It was breeding flies like crazy.

I’m glad I got it all done as it kept me occupied. Things I’m not very happy thinking about.

Then a guy came from our internet service provider and actually fixed the WiFi rather than moaning about the cats. I had to chase them down as well. Nothing gets done in this city if you don’t prod.

Then I went to Tesco and cooked and ate an entire chicken. Bite me.

Now I’m going to a Factory zoom session.

—

Here we all are on zoom. Zoomyzoomyzoom. Meeting meeting meeting. I still hate these but they are functional.

—

That was rather pleasant to be honest. Old friends and new, geeky lovely inspired people collaborating. Fun when I’m sad.

The only option is to step into the light.

After a lovely weekend I got back home to news that I could never have predicted. This beautiful little movie I was high billed in, this movie with a major director… He’s decided it works better as a two hander and he’s reshot some scenes to make it work that way. It means that people a lot better known than I am would have received the same letter. We aren’t in it anymore. I can still have it on my CV, and maybe I’ll be in the credits when they roll, but in terms of the cry towards external validation, once again I’m back to the drawing board. I made the mistake of getting excited about this one and I told too many people. This shit is dark. I have been fuelled by optimism and blind wide happy hope for decades now and sometimes I think I’ve weathered everything this industry can throw at me. I half believe that this one is a very involved bad dream. I didn’t think it was possible the whole storyline would get the heave ho. But…

So I have to step into the light again again again.

I was involved with a very beautiful thing, which will continue to be very beautiful even without my face and voice. It will be moving and powerful and funny, and it is in the hands of two wonderful actors, one of them a Guildhall graduate, one of them a knight of the realm. The movie will stand tall I’m sure. But “I was in that, they cut the whole storyline” doesn’t hold the same punch as “I saw you in that thing by that person, it was great.”

For me, forever, it’s about access to the jobs. I couldn’t give a fuck about being recognised, but if it helps me get the chance to do the thing I’m here to do then great. I’m running blind into closed doors repeatedly. I’ll keep doing it. Some of them might have been ajar if that movie had gone how I wanted it to. But it didn’t. So it’s back to the drawing board. It mustn’t go for nothing this time. When my whole storyline was cut from the Luc Besson movie my mental health took a plunge. I’m much healthier now and my perspective is better on how it all works. Most actors have at least one story like this. It’s Hollywood, baby. Another bit of footage I wish I could have on my showreel. Another disappointment.

So I’m really gonna try and punch forward now, smash those doors, get that work, stay bright, stay healthy. It tastes like sawdust but it was done well, the let down. The director handwrote me a letter, and put in a photo of himself dedicated with “feel free to rip this to shreds”. I knew from him before I knew from my agent. We worked well together so … who knows, there might be another role down the line. Meantime I’m gonna find the light just as soon as I’ve stopped randomly crying every few minutes.

Arse. Fuck. Fuckedy fuck. Bugger. Fuckytitbags. Arseshit bum bum poo.

It’s summer. August has always been a lucky month for me. The tide comes in, the tide goes out. I think I’ll be okay but Jesus fucking Christ not again. We are done with this now.