Author: albarclay

Can you imagine back to 1185? It’s so hard. It’s forever back.

The Templars built a Temple back then, just south of the river fleet. They had money. Back then it was the crusades kicking off. “That thing you believe is wrong. We will teach you that our idea is right. By force.”

With a modern sensibility it seems absurd that a belief structure can be used as grounds for war. But still now in the modern world pretendywendy things are the unquestioned basis for absurd acts. People actually literally explode themselves publicly because their flibbedywobbet has PINK wings, not blue like those hateful fools have believed for centuries!

The Knights Templar created the idea of banks, before banks became about gambling for profit and actively destroying the economy.

Back then you could lodge your money in London and shortly have it available in Jerusalem. Amazing, and difficult and rare. It was still a gamble, of course, but the gamble was on the Templars. Less likely to result in some pasty faced narcissist eating your stuff. They tried to make sure you got your stuff.

The gold you left wasn’t the gold you withdrew, of course. They didn’t need to send the bank manager off walking from London to Jerusalem laden with your stuff without getting beaten up. They just passed a promissory note down the line, faster than any individual could travel.

It was a gamble. It was largely predicated on pillaging. But it worked. Yes the gold was mostly stolen but there was enough stolen gold to satisfy the people who didn’t get killed when they asked for it.

Meanwhile the heart of their economy sat in London. It’s still there, in the thick of it, pulled back from the main drag. The inner Temple is a strange anomaly – a quiet public private bit of land, just off the main drag. Sometimes I know someone who has a key to private gardens around there. I’ve covered that ground in different contexts very deeply. The church itself is a huge beautiful and fascinating monument. And whatever it was built on, in the heart of London, it’s a powerful building.

This evening I watched Macbeth there. Good to see a show with witches in that ancient edifice. All the stone churches are built on places of power.

The guys in the Twelfth Night company told me I was mad to go and watch a play. Particularly a Shakespeare’s play. I’ve had a six day week on Shakespeare and then on the Saturday before my day off I pay money to see people do it instead of just stopping. But hell, I love working with that person’s words and I always learn from watching other people.

Right now Macbeth is of particular interest to me as it’s the active Factory project. I basically literally know every single line. I’m interested in how they deliver them, and whether the company can sweep me up enough that I forget. But meanwhile I reserve the right to be distracted by a glorious ceiling…

Time is running away. I still haven’t got Toby / Antonio 1 second left hand change satisfactorily solved. That’ll be the weekend. My head is burning with Shakespeare right now. And logistics.

“Is it normal to be so fried?” asks Katherine. I’ve only done one of these tours before so I’m no expert. But yeah. I remember how my brain was hurting at this stage last time. We have been looking at the journey of the stuff, and topping and tailing all the entrances and exits, trying to lose dead time and snip and nip and tuck. We are in on Saturday as well, to bolster the time lost to the bank holiday when we can’t get into the venue. The wash of the show is almost done. We have to start tightening now, really getting to the heart of why scenes exist. Thankfully it’s a lovely bunch and we are all pulling together.

I’m out for the night though. I’m off to see Minnie. I’ll be away until late November so I’m trying to capitalise on my time outside of rehearsals. I don’t see enough of many of my friends anyway, with the obsession I have with this delightful antisocial work. I‘m trying to catch people in the gaps, when I have the energy. Considering I was able to commute to Oxford and do a show after rehearsal for the first few weeks I know that there is fuel in the tank for that sort of thing. Minnie has been so important in my life over the years. I’ll miss her daughter tonight – she’ll already be in bed – but I’m writing this in an expensive Uber to Catford as the sun sets to see her. My very very dear old friend.

I got to hang out with her and it was great. We both needed it. When you’re with with a true and proven friend the weight falls away immediately. We both needed that simplicity for a bit. Just … to communicate with ease, to sit by each other. The solutions are in the silences and the simple understanding, as much as anywhere else. I am exhausted and less than fully secure. Zeph had been kicking off unusually just before I arrived. Min was discombobulated. I have no clue about babies, but I know discombobulation. We had pizza and caught up and now I’m on the bus home feeling so much lighter even though we only managed a few hours together. Again though, if there’s room in your head to do it, it’s worth making space for the people that matter. I have a few people I’ve neglected utterly recently, and it’s unlikely I’ll catch some of them before I leave. I don’t even have parents or grandparents to factor in. I can barely manage seeing any of my deep friends around my job.

I need to see too many people before I sod off to the States until Christmastime. I won’t manage it. But I’m glad I managed one tonight even if it means less time for important costume thinkyness. Belch doesn’t need to be fat. Sure, he was played by the Falstaff actor. But aside from his alcoholism there’s nothing in the text to imply he’s fat. It might be the belly that I ditch in the end. I’m still cooking though.

But this is where my head is at right now. It’s the downside of doing what you love. You can’t park it when the working day is over. It keeps on bubbling…

This morning, instead of being at my friend’s wedding I was at a jam session. One of us was at the US Embassy. Another was off working. I had to be there though, because there was the knowledge that I desperately wanted to be elsewhere. My presence became the most important part of procedures in reaction. I’m shit at politics. I prefer it when people just say true things. I got myself into a corner again.

As a result I was working while my dear friend tied the knot. Beautiful work though. I started to find ways to bring my accordion into the gorgeous music that Kaffe has initiated. It was fun and engaging and it helped me better assimilate the loss of an important day. I’ll never quite overcome that loss, but it’s something to do with being in Twelfth Night and maybe I can find a superstitious way in which I blame the play. Last time, playing Malvolio up at Sprite, I had to miss my friend Davina’s wedding. It was press night and the wedding was abroad. Our friendship never quite recovered. It will with work though. All relationships respond to work.

Dan and Jules and I are hopefully solid enough to overcome this unfortunate shitstorm. I hope they had a beautiful day.

The issue at stake here is the antisocial nature of my profession. If I’m working, I work when everybody else is playing. If I’m not working I’m hibernating, counting the pennies and struggling with self esteem. And I would always sooner be working than not working, and that occasionally involves having to miss important occasions at last minute. As I said before, insha’Allah. At least I like the people I’m working with.

It’s nice having the squeezebox included in the mix. If I can make it do nice sounds then I might be able to improve the show while getting better at it. I hadn’t really figured it as a possibility until today. I have to get my hands to play together, but Kaffe is a folk musician in the same way I am, understanding shapes and needs over letters if the alphabet. He totally understood that I just needed him to play his bit while I worked out by ear what to plop in. He’s very good at his bits, but his attitude towards it all is so forward and positive that it helps us all pick up and play. Some of us were traumatised by formal training, but intrinsically musical. We will have a little band by the time the tour is open.

It’s at a tricky stage right now. None of us can remember everything simultaneously. Five person Shakespeare is genuinely not an easy thing to do, and to do it with ease and clarity is even harder. For me, my brain is currently fried with logistics. I also badly want to find a solution for Toby / Antonio so I can have a fight with myself whilst changing signifiers as quick as a flash. This weekend I’ll have to do some magnet sewing, because if I’ve still got nothing by Monday I’ll have to just go with cummerbund / sash which will disappoint me. I want to make something more impressive and harder. But it might take more skill than I’ve got. The only way of finding out is by doing…

We had a run today of much of it. It feels like we are barking up the right tree. That’s something at least. We had a horse drawn carriage where I’m one of the horses, that I was convinced was going to get cut for all the time we’ve worked on it. But it passed muster. So far. Neighh!

I’d normally be in Wales by now. Instead I had a hot bath. Now I’m sitting companionably with Brian on the sofa while Pickle happily munches away at her white fish and her biscuits, satisfied in the knowledge that she just shat directly in the middle of Brian’s brand new duvet cover. I chose the wrong time to have a hot bath in the same room as her litter tray.

My magnets arrived in the post today. I bought some quick change magnets. They took ages to arrive. You sew them into your clothes so you can magically change in and out of them at speed. The fact that I can’t sew has only just come to my attention. Never too late to learn I guess. I need to make something where I can efficiently switch between Belch and Antonio so I can have a fight with myself without it being too fussy. If I can do it deftly with my left hand in about a second it’ll be a delight. My head is not great in that sort of thing. I’m currently thinking belly to epaulette. Some sort of foam bolster with material to round off a shoulder pad for Antonio, and it goes under the shirt and holds with magnets for Toby’s belly. It might be too complicated. I’ll know I’m a few days, and a cummerbund to a sash will be a fine compromise if I can’t make it work. It’s all about communication and simplicity this work, not the tricks. But the devil is in the detail.

I’ve only gone and put the accordion in the show as well. I’m still struggling to separate my left and right hands so I’m taking it to America at my own inconvenience in order to have time with it. If it’s in the show I have to play it live. I’ll have it in my hotel room too. A little bit of work often. I’ve already noticed an improvement but I’ve still got a long way to go. It’d be a beautiful dream to be able to play it well enough to put it on my CV. I had it there for about three days. My agent at the time rang me up once it was on and said someone had asked if I could sight read music on the thing. I said categorically not and took it off again immediately. I’ve got an actor’s brain on it. “You need that note. I can hear where that note is. It comes out of this button. Excellent well. Note achieved. Need another note? I’ll keep listening.”

Twelfth Night is probably the most musical play in the canon. It opens with that famous line “If music be the food of love, play on!” The scenes incorporate the music much more than some of the other musical comedies do. It ends with “Hey ho, the wind and the rain!” All of us are rising into our musicality, led aptly by Kaffe who has written some great music and requires us to jam along. The more time I spend with it the more I enjoy this play and this process on it. Although I wish I could be in Wales tonight and tomorrow.

Here are four of us, joined at the head like a rat king. We will have to remember to take photos of Katherine, as she is great at taking them of us…

It’s amazing having my evenings back. Yesterday I met up with Tom, who has directed Christmas Carol every year. It looks likely it’ll pop up again. Three jobs back to back? Don’t mind if I do. Today I’m just hanging out in the evening sun as it sets after Twelfth Night rehearsal. It’s been a perfect late summer day today in London, the warm air moving, the sky clear.

Most of the day we have been in our excellent vast rehearsal room in Brixton. We are doing it all. Actors, directors, stage management, lighting, music. All but producing, although it’ll be part of my job to give us a good face with local papers as we move around. Kaffe has to write the blog. We all have duties. Jonno is Travel monitor. Katherine is Tech. But we will all help one another.

You might ask why I’m not on blog. Well, I can’t do two blogs at the same time. And by can’t I mean won’t. I’d do nothing but write. And I reserve the right to rant here, or obsess about something tiny, or try an idea. But anyway, Kaffe has got it sewn up.

We are at that difficult stage in the process where our minds are halfway in a remembering place and halfway in the moment. “What did we decide was happening in that moment? Should I be ready to switch character? What’s the staging? What’s my objective here? Have I got my lines right? Where is my signifier for the next character I’m shifting into? Fuck I missed it.” It’s difficult, this thing that we are doing. But that’s the point, and therein lies the joy. In the end I always prefer things to be difficult. Better to have a challenge and overcome it. That’s part of what this game’s about.

Patrick Stewart and Peter Holland helped make this wonderful company over fifty years ago now as far as I understand. The game is clear. We tell a Shakespeare play as clearly as we can with just five actors. The show has to fit in a single suitcase. We do it in a different city every week, hosted by an institution. We work with and in the community around the shows we do.

Last time found me working with lots of students, some old folks, and once – and this will always stay with me – we went into a prison in Indiana and played to the inmates. That was our preview. I wrote the above blog at the time and if you fancy double Al Barclay it’s one of the posts from the blog that kicked this extended experiment off.

The last tour was one of the most fruitful and positive times I could’ve had in a very dark personal place. Now I’m internally much better and I’m very excited about the potential of what might come from this tour with this extraordinary group of humans.

I have no idea what it’ll bring, but the five of us are already ready for it.

On Thursday my friend Dan is getting married. I was best man at his last wedding. Thank God he hasn’t asked me again as he’d have to find a new best man with three days notice. I can’t go. Perfect storm.

His partner practices the same Buddhism I practice and knows my ex girlfriend. They have only recently moved back to the UK after emigrating to Canada. I’ve missed him. This is a chance to reconnect and plug into their lives.

Nope. Acting.

When we were at school, he was a one man army in my defence. He put up with mockery to be my friend. He taught me what it means to be a friend to someone. He barricaded his bedroom door once whilst I climbed out the window to escape. He was a rock. He is a rock. We have held contact. But if he’s a rock, I’m a Rick. (One for the Rick and Morty fans there!) Ugh.

Dan’s getting married in Wales, four hours drive from London, and I so so want to support it. His stag came when I was overlapping jobs recently so I had to miss it but I really thought I could make it work for his marriage. His wedding is this Thursday.

One of the four other actors I’m working with will be at the US Embassy in the morning for a visa interview which will take as long as it takes. It’s already a half day for her. I thought it made sense.

I cleared a day off weeks ago with all the other actors, but hadn’t thought it relevant to clear it with casting.

Thursday afternoon is the only time possible for the people who cast us to come in and see us in a run. It’s a necessary part of a process that has been interrupted anyway with recasting one part. It’s in the contract.

Despite this pending partnership! Dan and Jules! Getting married!

The heart of my pain on this is the fact that it’s a pattern I’ve been running on myself for decades. Up until this time I’ve never dug my heels in to try to put life before work. Normally I just sacrifice life to work unthinkingly and immediately. But I’m getting older. This time I tried to put life first, and tried to hold out but to no avail, which only adds to my sense of powerlessness. Dan and Jules are one of the shining flakes of joy coruscating around me. I now have to hit them with a shoe.

I sent the actual messages today. It’s the day they signed their vows at the registry office. I’m thrilled for them. I care for them both. I couldn’t bear to call and bring a down. I sent messages. He hasn’t read them yet so I might have to ring tomorrow. They’re busy and it’s a ton of work.

There’ll be an empty seat with my name on it and empty space in the ceremony where I was going to do a sonnet and some Buddhism. I’ve already offered to cover whatever my absence costs them fiscally. For what it’s worth.

It’s always hard when they aren’t actors; “Just tell them you’re sick!” “I really can’t.” Particularly when I write a daily blog.

This delightful vocation. It’s antisocial. No wonder such a high percentage at the Guildhall reunion have jumped ship and seem happier for it. I still love it, but … Oh compromise you old familiar beast. I’ve just been so lucky recently to have lots of work, that I’m experiencing the work/life balance skewed in an unfamiliar direction.

I have made a family of my friends. One of the last friends who knew both parents is back in the country and getting married to someone amazing. It’s a blow to miss it but miss I must.

“The show must go on!” It’s seductive. We are dancing into the fire though with it. I pledge to try never to do it again – to give cold advice.

Stiff upper lip. Chin up. It’s not helpful. Really not. I will listen to you and offer support.

I’m off to bed. Lovely day of rehearsal today. This feels really positive, this Twelfth Night. It’s going to be great. It’s such a strong company, and part of my job as an alumni is to lead the company positively. And I will continue to do so. I’m just having a moment. Don’t read too much into it. Better out than in. As before, so again. I sometimes forget people read this until I get to the end.

I’m still thinking about that reunion yesterday.

Ellen has been photographing old snaps she took of us, and sending them to a WhatsApp group in bunches. At the time I had it in my head that I was old, as I was a little older than some of the people in my year. There really wasn’t much in it when I compare it with how old we all are now. The youngest of us all have babies now. Ellen’s sensible daughter – who we all knew when we were training – she’s older than all of us were when we started, and she’s got an OBE for her work with ebola while we were putting on make-up in a room above a pub.

To get to Guildhall for the reunion I took my usual commute. I found it quite emotional to tread the ground I had walked every day back as the millennium turned, guessing at what might be in store for myself and for others. Nostalgia is a powerful thing, which is why they still remake films that were great the first time round. I wasn’t the only one to get a bit teary eyed as I remembered the uncomplicated past.

These were not halcyon days. Halcyon days are a construct. It’s pretty good now, frankly. But time brings weight. I miss the gung ho way in which I approached things back then, even if I was many degrees more naïve than I am now. My support structure was in full presence. It’s good to connect with that sense of safety again. My mother was a fixed point. I can’t overestimate the extent to which parents anchor us. When I lost that anchor a couple of years after this photo, I drifted for a long long time, and reflexively started protecting myself and building defences.

I’ve been thinking of the girlfriends I left so I could chase my career or my solitude, and the other people I’ve pushed away by mistake. I see that pattern having become a deeper part of my behaviour now that I’m my own anchor. I wonder if I’ll ever break it enough to walk alongside somebody again. I hope so. Some of those eyes around that table – they are unchanged. I love those humans. I’ve looked into all of those eyes and told the truth so many times that even though I hadn’t seen some of them for decades it felt like yesterday. Such a diverse group of unusual humans. We were a strong ensemble. There was a lot of love. Now I rarely see the bulk of them.

There are one or two who I still see, who still touch my life regularly. Some through Factory, others through just walking in similar patterns. But this all consuming antisocial vocation I’m still rattling at forces me to concentrate when people leave the nexus that is London, and often I can go months and months without contacting someone I really like. It’s all so sporadic, shifting from centre to centre. I still love it. But it’s an antisocial job.

In my recall audition at Guildhall before the whole faculty they asked “Where do you see yourself in twenty years?” “Definitely still acting, no matter what. This audition will help determine how well.”

Well. Here I am. Wherever that is…

Around this time of year 20 years ago we got the news. “You have been accepted to train at Guildhall School of Music and Drama.” Boom.

At the time you could go there to find out live on the day it was announced. I did so. A woman tried to sell me lucky heather on the way. I told her no, saying I needed good luck, I had a good feeling about it, and if I got the result I wanted I’d forever be reliant on heather. Good shout. I am now immune to lucky heather.

I had been working as the receptionist at Ambassadors Theatre Group, Turnstyle. The bulk of my work that day had been to do with preventing Jason Donovan from being put through to a certain producer. There were Rocky Horror problems with no answers yet, and delaying tactics were in full swing. “I know she’s there. I’m sitting in the Rainforest Cafe opposite! She walked in 5 minutes ago.” “She hasn’t walked past my desk yet.” “You’re lying to me.” “I’m not.” It was good to escape. Had I not got into Guildhall I might have still been working there. I’d have a lot more money. I wouldn’t be so happy.

They separated us into groups in the gym at Guildhall whilst loudly playing terrible music. We went into another room. My old schoolfriend Toby read the names. I was counting the group size. I knew that the year group at Guildhall was 24. We had about 30 names called out in our group and as soon as the count for my group went past 24 I hit rage. Toby winked at me as if to say well done. I didn’t properly register it. The numbers were wrong. We were moved into a room and I sat there with a face like thunder. It was too many. I didn’t have a place. Fuck this whole idea. We sat there for ages.

When the faculty came in and told us we had been accepted I didn’t immediately process it, so convinced I had been of it going the other way. After all, I had spoken to one of the guys in my group and he spoke next to no English. Maté, our Hungarian film star. One of my best friends over the years we were there. I often have negative expectations. I’m learning not to.

They buffer themselves with too many acceptances at Guildhall. I was overthinking as ever. Funny that. Sometimes people decide they’d prefer to be a scientist, or go to Julliard or get a proper job. They offer too many places tactically. We ended up 23 because one student literally just didn’t show up on the first day. She was rich Chinese, I think, and her parents prevented her at the last minute. We watched the teachers pretending not to panic about it. It was a wasted space. A shame. But our unit was complete.

Some of us got together this evening for a reunion. Twenty years since we first met. Fuck you, time! But it was lovely.

Russell organised it. It was a strange and beautiful thing. We met in The Jugged Hare – the pub that still stands on the site of our beloved King’s Head. It has since been retooled to appeal to the people we didn’t like when we were students.

A good sized group of us had a meal in the shadow of the past. Things felt much as they used to, although many of us are parents now. I went home early, but full of memories of how it used to be, even now that we are 20 years older…

I literally don’t want to write today. My faith in this blog has taken a massive hit. I write daily and instinctively try to make it interesting. Obviously. But maybe I should just go to the old standard of “wow here I am with *link* doing *link* and omg *linked names* are amazing particularly *linked name with most followers* #actor #actorslife #blessed #MoreHastagsThanContent

I try to tell the truth about my inner state. Often my inner state has no correlation with what you get if you’re in the room with me. We are all like that. It’s called being human.

Internally I’m a screaming mess of insecurities and howling worries, paranoia and crashing loneliness. Externally (I think/hope) I’m gently awkward, friendly, open hearted, caring, creative and immediate.

Yesterday I was having one of those days where I was internally knackered but firing on every available cylinder. The Creation Theatre lot understood that about me and then some. They saw me show up and get ready. I sat with Charlie for a bit and joked that maybe my blog photo should be her dragging me through the door. They knew full well that I was joking – that I’d give the show everything. The show was even live streamed. There is empirical proof that I was on form.

By jokingly writing myself as a fish person I opened a can of tasty bait worms. That one blog has come with a cost. It’s perhaps enough to make me decide to wrap this shit up, frankly. I never set out to hurt myself here. Once before I took a hit because of my daily writings. Now, again. It’s ridiculous.

I’m deeply conflicted. Multiple people have recently told me lovely things about how they encounter this blog. How the thoughts, even when drunkenly circular, sometimes chime with their thoughts or their patterns of thinking. I do find it therapeutic to write this. But not if it fucks up my happiness.

I’m angry. Like when you realise people have been ganging up on you. And I feel I can’t go into detail. But without actually being a problem I’ve made myself into a problem by joking about my state yesterday.

Fuck it. I’m not going to write this anymore today. Blog out.

In fact, no. I can use these words.

I want to thank you, oh constant reader. I’ve been genuinely moved on a very deep level this week by things that people I respect so deeply have told me they’ve taken from these writings. Thank you for staying engaged with this. I don’t know who you are, most of you. It’s so helpful for me to write this. Yeah, sometimes I get the tone wrong. Sometimes I get angry and say stuff I don’t mean. And sometimes I shoot myself in the foot like yesterday. Ha ha ha SLAMFACE.

I have made myself have to do this blog every day and run the marathon of these 500 words for ages now. Sometimes it explodes in my face, but so long as I don’t compromise my honesty in the moment of writing then I can’t regret it, I guess.

I once wrote my speculative opinion of why someone did something incomprehensible to me in this blog. Ages later I was told that they chose not to pursue legal action. Bless. Seriously folks – sometimes I just make the whole blog up. Cucumbrivalis! Other times I exaggerate my inner life for fun. I’m assuming you’re on the same page as me. Don’t get swept up in it. Everything is transient.

I’m so tired I’m making everything bigger in my head. I’m pretty damn fine, and today in rehearsal was lovely.

Rosebud.

Inshallah.

Fuck it.

I had a momentary blackout in the middle of a scene in rehearsal about two hours ago. I had to ask the others if I’d fallen over. Apparently not. My question struck them as odd, which I suppose it must’ve been without the long context of inner struggle that it came from. “Guys, did I just fall over?” “Er..  are you ok?” “Yeah, yeah I’m good I just thought I might have fallen over … um … never mind.”

It’s an illustration of how horribly tired I’ve gone and made myself. My voice is in rags. I’ve been wearing the same T-Shirt for three days. Lines I’ve known for ages are falling out of my ears and getting lost behind chairs and in cobwebs. Right now I’m on the train praising the gods that I messed up my bike test and that I can just let Great Western Railway worry about how I’m getting up to Oxford for the very last Tempest instead of throwing on leathers, jumping on a hog and riding it into a tree.

I can do this. I’ve got a show in me. Ten scenes and the start and finish. One show, one day more of rehearsal before the weekend. Then time. Actual time. Time that is mine.

(I’ll likely spend half of the weekend brushing up on lines that have hitherto been neglected, but that’s as maybe.)

It was worth it for last night, having this deep strange unhelpful but peaceful exhaustion today. Even if my hangover meant that the Twelfth Night company had to rehearse with the fabulous talking fish-person.

Last night brought live music and fun, for ages in a great pub with delightful people. I even made new friends of old acquaintances. But the hand to mouth instinct was in full swing and boy oh boy…

The cab driver shocked me out of a deep sleep far too early. I remember nothing of my journey to Brixton. I stood in a taped square doing talking and I kept wondering if I was rehearsing or just having a strange dream about rehearsing. I think sometimes I spoke in extended sentences designed to be helpful to other actors – we direct each other. In retrospect I fear the content of my sentences was mostly stuff like “You’re playing Olivia. She has feet. Feet are useful for walking and stuff. Has anybody noticed the dappled light on the wall over there? So yeah, try that. Is that helpful. My name’s Al. Who are you playing again?”

I keep saying things out loud in the train carriage. I’ve done it frequently enough that I’m now aware that everybody around me is keeping a loose eye on me in case I suddenly rise up brandishing a machete. The most recent exclamation was “God help me.” I’m too tired to catch them before they come out. I’m too tired for much more than excreting these blogwords, taking all my clothes off and replacing them with costume, shouting at strangers in a tree for an hour or two, bowing, reversing the clothing trick and working out how to join the dots between the venue in Oxford and my pillow in London, accompanied by my laptop and accordion.

Lift sorted with Simon. Amazing. Now I just have to survive the show.