Author: albarclay

I’m lying on Ginny’s sofa. To my right is a glass of chilled white port that my agent sent to me for opening night. To my left is Louis the cat. He is just doing his cat thing. He won’t be there for long. He ain’t no Pickle.

It was so hot today. I met Paul and Ryan for breakfast in Jericho under the air con in Jericho Cafe, and then went for a walk to Port Meadow with no aircon, before realising it was too damn hot to go for a walk in a meadow with just a flask of water. I ended up in The Odeon on Cornmarket having a glass of £2.20 Fanta plus excellent air conditioning. Then I had light lunch in a cheap air conditioned pasta restaurant before staggering out dripping again into the Sahara. I tried some ice cream but I could feel myself fading. I got an emergency black cab back to Ginny’s. I haven’t slept long hours lately. My body went into catch up mode. I shut down like an overheated laptop, after just managing a cold shower, in Ginny’s spare room, covering my bits with a towel in case Casper decided to throw open the door again.

My dreams were extremely detailed and completely insane for an hour. Then my alarm went off and I had to wake up and wake up again into showheadedness.

I had ten groups of hot audience members come and meet me in the tree. They were all so hot and knackered that it was easy to shift them into intimacy but harder to get them to be playful. If it’s raining their play is buried beneath a protective heaviness. If it’s hot they’ll play soft but nobody wants to be called on to be energetic. That’s where they all were. Knackered.

Some skagheads shot up in my playing area between my 5.30 check and my 7.40 arrival. They pulled the case bits out of the water and utterly decimated the remains of it. They destroyed the sandbag as well while looking for value and tipped out my pack of almond flakes for the strange fishes maybe hoping it was a stash.

They even left their needle case for me but not the needle thankfully. I got it all cleared up before the first group. That’s not a good life drug, junk. I just bought Naked Lunch as my next book. I didn’t expect the worlds to collide so quickly.

Of course they left their paraphernalia. But a shame they needed to trash what I’ve built when I have to lead my audience in a process: “What is it, Josh, is it a body?” “It’s a stick and … some empty sacking.” “Oh thank God it’s not a body. But wait Josh – it’s not a stick. It looks man made.” “I think it’s just a bit of ship timber your majesty.” “But it has these hinges, look.” “I can’t work out out.” “And this material. Is it crocodile skin?” “I think it’s leather.” “No Josh it’s crocodile skin. Go with the prompt. It’s the disintegrated remains of my son’s bag. Lost like he is. Gone back to the ooze oh thou mine heir etc etc”

Everybody stood up when we did bows. Good for them.

Weird day today if I’m honest. My insecurities racked themselves up to the max and I’m still plagued as I write. I slept fitfully for just three and a half hours last night which likely didn’t help at all and still isn’t helping.

The start time for the show up here is being shifted earlier because sunset is getting earlier by the night and our last few outdoor scenes are conducted in near darkness already. I was asked by text to have an early meeting with production today. My imagination went wild. I thought maybe someone had complained about a bit of my improv – (I’m alone with the audience so if they’re asshats I’ve got no support and it’s their word against mine.) But no. It was a feasibility study. They wanted to see if it was possible for me to get to the show earlier than contracted from my rehearsal in London. They know that sunset is only going to get earlier as we go through the run.

I fucked the big bike for myself so I’m reliant on trains. The train is pretty quick, and I asked the guys on the next job if they could be flexible on timings and if we could start rehearsal earlier in Brixton even half an hour earlier. I was rebutted firmly by a close friend and collaborator who happens to be in the USA company with me. I can’t wait to tour with him. He’s a witty, gentle and kind individual. But he knows me well enough to “no” me and he did so categorically and immediately.

He’s worked for this glorious Oxford company a few times before too so he knows the score. I saw him do beautiful work as Shylock. I had auditioned for it. Often it’s hard when you went up for it, but I loved seeing him smash that role. We’ll never be in competition, he and I. We are so very different. We play well together in The Factory and he’s a friend. He needs to walk his dog. And the Piccadilly line is horrible for him before 9.

In another world he might have been in the cast with me here – he often works for the company. It would’ve been lovely to share the time-pressured journey from London to Oxford with him, and to get to the show on time from shared rehearsal while preparing together. But sadly he’s not doing it this year.

Being me I’ve factored in delay time to my original arrival calculation. I had a whole hour of spill. Reputation is important to me. I really don’t want the show held on my account.

I’ll still arrive in time, trusting that there are no delays, certainly for the first week of overlap where the show is only opening 15 minutes earlier. But the second week it’s a further 15 minutes earlier to start, which will be a bit too squeaky for my taste.

With early rehearsal start times nixed I’ll have to be leaving rehearsals before they’re finished for two weeks. “We will do scenes you aren’t in for an hour,” they say. But I know that for the scenes I’m not involved in, my presence is even more valuable as an outside eye. There’s no director. We have to ring the bell for each other on this job. And we will. It’ll be beautiful. But I want so much to be able to provide that outside eye and help everybody to be the best version of themselves. NMHRK.

I’m fortunate enough to have met all four of the other actors and I adore and respect all of them. But I want all the time I can get to come together and make it an honest fun piece of work to tour with.

I’m so privileged, working two jobs. How rare is that? That opportunity never comes up. I even have banter in the WhatsApp group for Twelfth Night taking the piss out of me about how lucky I am.

I love Creation up here in Oxford. I’m so happy in this summer show I’m doing. It’s a beautiful way to spend a season. This honest and deeply artistic company is led by a bunch of extraordinary women and It’s taken 8 years for them to get me back up here BUT THEY HAVE! Thank the Gods they’ve persisted. This is a fantastic job to be involved in. I feel so at home and happy in my work now that I’ve made it back.

This commute to Brixton and back will work fine because I’ll make it work despite everything. Nothing is ever simple but we can edge it towards simplicity by having the right head on it.

Here’s me and my “son”. Apple didn’t fall far…?

It’s press night tonight. An actor prepares:

Alarm at 7. Up and breakfast, and then off to Screwfix to buy a plumber’s snake. I had one for 7 years. Kept it against ever needing it again. Chucked it a few months ago. Needed it again. £22.50. Bastards.

Snake first. Then acid. That’s the plan.

Snake involves disassembling the sink trap. Disassembling the trap involves having to put it back together again without it leaking, because putting acid down a badly sealed sink is really not smart. It also involves oozy mud and foul smells. Good method prep for Alonso and his obsession with oooooze.

The big timewaste today was trying to buy acid. This time last year there was that thing where people were throwing it at other people willynilly, like confetti at a wedding. A terrifying prospect, and divisive. “The aggressor was a bigendian and the victim a littleenendian.”

Perfect for selling newspapers. “The attacker bought it in Well Known Hardware Store”. So to avoid bad press and to announce that they are doing it for the public good, B&Q, Screwfix and Homebase have all stopped stocking One Shot – which is 93% sulphuric acid and it’s amazing that it can be purchased without a permit anyway. But it’s extremely effective. I wasted a few hours looking. I eventually came home with some alkaline crystals instead, which is pointless vs limescale but might help munge the catfood and chicken bits that have got in there.

Before I drop in the caustic stuff I test my new sink assembly with a plunger. The seals hold – hallelujah – and a whole load of broken glass weirdly pings out of the overflow. Ok. No amount of acid or alkali will deal with that surely. Glad it came out.

It’s the hottest day of the year. By this time I am pure liquid. I’ve been using dishcloths to screw pipes together because half of the ooze is the pipes and half of it is me. I’m Swamp Thing. But the caustic lumps finally return a degree of normal flow to the sink. For now. I put on the dishwasher and get in the coach. I still need acid.

The one thing I forgot to get is a spare show shirt. We get laundry done every other day, just like at Sprite, but halfway through my show under the tree last night one of the audience members asked me “Why are you so wet?” Rather than the truth: “lack of fitness plus heat plus acting”, I respond with “I’ve just been shipwrecked. What do you expect?” We both know the truth.

I’ll have to put that oozy shirt back on tonight. It will be like wrapping myself in weeping slugs. But I’m doing it for theatre! It’s press night, it’s a lovely show, and Tristan and Tanya are coming to see it. We are all three of us in the bus once again heading up to Oxford, and in plenty of time for the show.

And now I’m back in London, arriving on the coach. We were driven through a thunderstorm. The driver overlooked us smuggling a pizza onboard an otherwise empty bus. Hero.

The three of us put the world to rights as we went home. And both of my friends loved the show. An actor friend and a friend who doesn’t usually like theatre. Perfect. I knew it was going to be craic from day one. Turns out I was right…

Another beautiful night on the job, and apparently members of the press were in, on this night that is named after their industry. Just as well really. They will write words, most likely, these press people. It’s what members of the press tend to do after all. People sometimes wonder what words they might write. Words words words.

These words may or may not affect ticket sales in the next few weeks depending on factors such as where the words are put and who did the words. Although this show will sell out for sure. 

It’s another ephemeral art, the art of theatre criticism. Sometimes individuals puff up with the wind of youthful desire to be validated. Mostly the humans that do it are artists like the rest of us writing ephemera to explain even more fleeting ephemera.

I live for what is written in the wind though. It’s why I’m still here.

My kitchen sink is backed up and the seals on the u bend are worn. I didn’t realise it until I was running water to do some washing up just before going back to Oxford. I’d left an hour and a half in which to clean and tidy before departing for work. Water started backing up onto the kitchen floor through the u-bend. Bad timing, fate. Bad bad timing.

My usual reaction in situations like that is to freak out, but I managed to limit that instinct despite my heart rate going through the roof. But … it’s badly blocked. Thinking more about the leak than the block, I got an uber to Screwfix, picked up a new u-bend and tried to work out how everything fitted together. I succeeded only in moving the leak around, like a stinky fun free version of Mario Brothers. With a timer. Which more than ran out. I hate being late.

I had to run out of the flat without doing the planned tidy up, and with plumbing stuff lying everywhere in the kitchen, stopping briefly to make sure Pickle had food, miraculously remembering my keys, grabbing my hat, uber to the bus. Has to be a smooth journey.

The emergency plumber could only give me 4 hour slots where I couldn’t guarantee I’d still be home. They’d have needed payment in blood anyway. My regular plumber is not available until Thursday. So I’m the plumber now. But I have to do some theatre in the middle of the job. In Oxford. “It’s alright mate, I’ll only charge you for one call out.”

I’ll have to come back home tonight to get at it in the morning. So much for fun amongst the dreaming spires on Tuesday. It’ll be fun amongst the reeking pipes.

At least the Oxford tube bus is quick and goes to Victoria. I can’t use it next week when I’m under more serious time pressure but I can for now. At night it’ll probably be quicker to home than the train.

We take things like drainage from the kitchen sink for granted until it starts spitting on the floor. It’s amazing how much we take for granted really. I wonder how many of us would starve if we were locked in a room with all the component parts and the right tools to build a completely disassembled mobile phone but with no instructions. “Once it’s built you can order anything you like and we’ll let you out. Until it’s built you’re stuck with no food.” Dead.

From simple stuff like how to make bread, how to make cheese, purify water through building a radio receiver or an engine or a wind turbine or making antibiotics, all the way to microchips, nanobots, artificial intelligence. It’s crazy how useless we are becoming, even at the easiest things.

I wonder how many of you reading this could make a good cake without the internet. I doubt I could. Certainly not first time. Unless it was a pancake.

Obviously this is why we have community. I’m probably a bit more experienced at cake making than I am at basic plumbing. But I’m not good enough at either to offer one for the other so it’s my time, the money I’ve earned from my acting which isn’t proportionate to a plumber’s wage, or a flood in my kitchen.

Meanwhile the bus is in a traffic jam after all, more or less exactly where we were when we broke down last time. Bugger.

I’m at home. I haven’t seen another human being all day. Pickle ate some olives. That’s my excitement for the day. I’ve barely communicated with another soul since I woke up. I paid lip service to the idea of going to a pub quiz with Mel but I neither wanted to leave the house nor go and drink booze. I wanted a full weekend in a day but without the party. Work is the party right now. Today it was enough just to read a book, eat some olives, cook enough Bolognese for an army and put it in the freezer, look at lines, have one sided conversations with Pickle, play computer games, watch Rick and Morty reruns, and shut down. So I took the pressure off. After all it’s Sunday, so my quiet day actually coincides with the traditional Christian quiet day. Hallelujah.

I did spend a bit of time catching up on world news, which I immediately regretted. It’s hell out there. Portugal is on fire, Iran is butting heads with us, Bojo the clown is going to be head prefect and considering his record with Iran I’d be surprised if he’ll do well at solving the situation. Now he’s got the thing he burnt us all for, has he thought about what he is going to do with it?

It’s much more fun in Rick and Morty where you can shift between infinite worlds and find one that suits you. I was looking at New Zealand the other day, as a place where I might be ok with just dropping everything and moving to. I like the look of Jacinda Ardern as a leader. I’d follow her over that inward eyed dangerprat any day of the week. But maybe I just want a change of scene again. I’ll have to make the most of Oxford when I can. It’s a great town. I knew it better in my late teens than I do now – lots of my old haunts are gone for good or changed beyond recognition. But there are places steeped with ghosts of memories.

Ancient memories: The phone box where I used to ring my girlfriend every night, before I had a mobile phone. I’d be rinsing through BT phonecards by the dozen on those epic conversations or on expensive arguments. It’s still there, on the Banbury Road. We drove past it and somewhere just the other side of the sky that boy walked past with his flared jeans and his bright T-shirt. If I had a portal gun maybe I’d tell him a thing or two but I know he wouldn’t listen. He thought he knew it all.

There are also more recent memories, but just as compelling, from Spring 2012. The bookish smell of The Norrington Room where, in the company of dear friends, I learnt irreplaceable lessons about the power of letting go of the need to control everything. We improvised The Odyssey in there every night and it was the hardest thing most of us had ever done. We pulled together, had fun and when we listened we flew. The smell of the room though – it shoots into my sense memory, like the corridors at school or your mum’s perfume. It was a formative time, and those times get imprinted somewhere to be recalled with the smell. It’s why I get a different aftershave for all my characters. Scents – they change your brain.

I’m home in London with Pickle. I’ve come like Santa with Lily’s Kitchen cat food and extra litter in case she’s running low. It’s hard not seeing her in the week. Louis, one of the cats at my digs, will stand outside my room and yowl like hell at 2am, but if I let him in he doesn’t know how to curl up with me like Picks does. He’ll paw me and eventually leave again when he gets no attention. I’m looking forward to a snuggle with Pickle tonight. I rushed home to her after the show.

I lucked into a lift back home with Prospero and Ferdinand. Simon who plays Prospero drives right past my home heading to his. Perfect. I get right to my door. It’s my day off tomorrow and then for a week I’ll be in the rhythm of the showday. In an ideal world I’ll do a bit of Oxford tourism in the daytime week whilst working around thinking of things I can add or subtract from my scene, plus learning my lines for Twelfth Night. I want to embrace this week in Oxford, although it’s slightly dependent on Brian as I’ll commute if Pickle needs it, and I need to be home Wednesday daytime as I’m experimenting with having a cleaner but day one she’ll need me there to help her choose her battles, otherwise she’ll never return.

I’m looking forward to more thinking time now I know how audiences can be like under my willow tree. More time will bring more detail as it always does.

We had a beautiful night tonight. Compared to last night when they were all wet and drunk it was as different as night and day. I’m hoping we might have had our hardest show first.

Tonight ten very different groups of people who were having fun wandered round and witnessed ten very different scenes. I remember individuals from all of them. They had so much play in them. As I wrote a few weeks ago with Dead Man’s Hand, the weather changes everything. Wet people don’t like to play. Tonight everyone was playful and listening. So I played with them.

I had my Knight of the Ivy Garter, and my Knight of the Farty Bum. I had one group so hysterical it was hard work to suckerpunch them into my sadness. I had a man who regretted something deeply, and that scene weirdly felt like mutual group therapy for us both. Such a varied night. People bring what they bring, and whatever it is it’s something. Last night was fine for me, but hard work as the playfulness had been washed out of the audience by dark and rain. Tonight shows me what this can be. With good weather, this can be a true joy, and a powerful way to experience Shakespeare’s final, most experimental, most versically unusual tempestuous magical play. His longform retirement letter: “This rough magic / I here abjure …I‘ll break my staff, / Bury it certain fathoms in the earth, / And deeper than did ever plummet sound / I’ll drown my book.” He’s leaving work and potentially life. He already knows it. He’s using his unique wisdom to frame his farewell to his friends, without understanding how it might be dissected by generations of academics. It’s a play all about storms and regrets and ooze and mud and endings and new things replacing us.

For us, essentially there’s one big scene and then the audience is splintered by the shipwreck into ten groups of up to fourteen. They go on an adventure that I’m part of and then return for a full cast finish.

The scenes are extremely varied. Some of them are treasure hunts, some are scenes in odd places, some are puzzles, some are weird experiences or soundscapes. Mostly I’m just bipolar under a tree, although I do get to do a spot of finding my light in a big room while speaking chunks of verse, which I suppose we can call trad theatre.

In unrelated news, Oxford is mad on a Saturday. It’s like a zombie movie, but the zombies are less dynamic.

I’m hunkered down in a patch of muddy ground underneath a willow tree, occasionally swearing. It’s half five on a Friday and the Oxford commuters are whizzing home on bicycles behind me. I’m not thinking about them right now though. I’m too busy stuffing a muddy sandbag into a suitcase, insulting the case for not closing and, once it’s finally shut, tying it about with multiple filthy leaking fishermen’s knots so it can’t slip out of the rope. I wouldn’t want to lose the suitcase in the mud if the handle came off, as I’ll likely end up leaping in after it before I consider the consequences. Wet king. Dry cleaning bill.

It’s only as I finish making the prop, and I swing the heavy bastard into the river that I realise how this might look to anyone that isn’t part of the show. I turn around and sure enough some guy has got his eye on me – this shadowy mumbler surreptitiously disposing of something in the water. SPLASH. As I turn he jumps, and scurries away in his hoodie. I momentarily consider running after him in the rain. “It’s a prop! For a play! No no come back. I haven’t got a weapon. Stop! Why are you screaming?”

Hopefully he won’t come back later and fuck my knots in exchange for a disappointing sandbag as he goes about his guilty panting hunt for body parts, fairy gold, the murder weapon, drugs, Jimmy Hoffa or whatever his imagination goes to. If he does, the scene can survive without the case but it’ll be annoying. I really don’t want to have to haul back a heavy soaking filthy suitcase to the venue every day in my damaged dinner jacket. Nor do I really want to have to re-square it off with knots daily and to get my hands filthy every night. It’s a long walk to the venue from the tree where the bulk of my work takes place.

Right now I’ve got to get into costume for the first – rainy – shownight.

Which I did. The show was lovely. But tough in the rain. I entirely hulked my dinner jacket, which I didn’t feel bad about as I’d been clear with wardrobe last night, and there were threads from previous actorhulk repair in the tear so I knew it was only going to get worse. I know how little rips can escalate and every moment I wore it and moved I could feel the damage grow, so I thrice asked for a small tear from last night to be shored up and eventually got an “It’s on a list,” which is code for “It’s not getting fixed anytime soon”. Everybody has too much to think about right now. I wish I knew how to operate a sewing machine as I felt like a costume Cassandra. I discovered this evening that other actors who know the deal had brought spare shirts etc. I know the deal now. I’m bringing shirts and cummerbunds and jackets. Maybe even a waistcoat. I’d have been more prepared had I had more notice. Last time I worked here it was with The Factory so we use our own clothes as a company ethos. Now I know the score regarding this I’m getting some spare stuff from my costume wardrobe on the weekend.

I tried to be gentle with that fucked dinner jacket, dammit. I’d already decided I’d take it off for the final scene to minimise risk as that was when it took the initial split-hit yesterday, but about halfway through this wet slippery night under the dark willow, when the poor damaged thing was soaking wet and clinging to my back, thus bereft of all flex, it literally split in half in front of an audience while I was just picking something up from the floor. Fine for the scene as I could style it out. But it’s so frustrating when you call something and it happens.

Tomorrow, the king will likely be “dressed down” in his shirt. I’m going to have to make him the chilled king. I think I might even wear my walking boots and make it all feel intended by going full hippy…

I’m loving this job btw. This is all just detail. I always wish that everybody was as bonkers as me.

I’m sitting in a huge conference hall. The floor is littered with torn bits of muslin, sticks, confetti and power tools. Two people are sewing, another is ironing tablecloths, another is stapling muslin to the underside of a trolley that I’ll be standing on in a few hours. Fans in the walls and ceilings do little to cut through the oppressive humidity. I’m dressed in a dinner jacket. Actors walk around in various states of undress. “You look so smart,” says Taz. “You look fucking cool,” I respond. She does.

We don’t have a dressing room as such, but we do have a room with chairs in it. It’s hot there as well. Everyone is borrowing things from Paul who has come prepared. I’m covered in his deodorant. Costumes are often left a few days without washing on jobs like this. I’d sooner not put on a damp shirt tomorrow.

It’s only a dress run but we have an audience and they’ll go through the show with us starting in about forty minutes. There’s that all too familiar frisson of nervousness in the room. None of us know what’s going to happen. We can only control what is controllable. There’s a lot that’s out of our hands.

I put my contact lenses in the wrong eyes and wondered for ages why they weren’t working. That’s an improvement on yesterday when I lost one round the back of my eye just as I was due to go on stage to rehearse, and had my lines read in for me while I was trying not to yak into the sink as I dug around for the thing.

“People have started to arrive,” says one of the interns nervously. Ryan can’t find his trousers. People compliment each other on their hair. Other Ryan paints Annabelle’s’s fringe. Chris takes my mugshot. Simon is playing the ceilidh on his accordion and I drop this to join him for a moment. Two of the producers dance in a corner, but other Ryan pulls Simon from practice to paint his face. I don’t get make-up. Only the magic people get make-up. I do have to take my trousers off though but just temporarily.

“How long does the show last,” the caretaker asks Taz and I. He is clearing up glasses from a conference while we stroll around in our pants. He’s trying to normalise. Neither of us have the slightest clue. The guy is confused. “You don’t know how long it is and you open tomorrow?”

We have started to huddle together now in a small area in the middle of this hall. Nobody knows where the audience maps are. Maddy has started saying “fripperies” out loud to herself. Simon shows me how sweaty his shirt is before he’s even done any acting. Kevin sings the opening bars of “Uptown funk” and Ryan has found his trousers. Ten minutes to go time. Suddenly there are three small children in the warehouse looking with wonder at all these colourful busy people. “There’s nowhere good to stand in this place,” says Charlie as she sorts out lanyards. I’m going to take a leaf out of Maddy’s book and start saying things like fripperies to myself somewhere. No I’m not. Zoe has called us in for a brief.

Here we go…

And this is just the dress rehearsal…

I just won a week. A whole extra week. I didn’t do anything to deserve it either. I just got it as a reward for being an idiot.

Here I am opening a show the day after tomorrow. Today I found a bit of text from the original Shakespeare play that obviously says my inner life better than my own words, so I learnt it and added it to my mix. I’m on my own with whoever comes to my bit mostly, so as long as it’s clear I know what I’m doing I can actively play with the humans that gather. Everybody plays differently. I want to try to get them to connect, listen, play a bit and then move on. I’ll be dealing with ten groups a night over about 80 minutes, with group scenes before and after. It’s a logistical nightmare that people better then me can sort. It’s selling out hard to local people who already know it’ll be big fat craic. It’s hard to get tickets for my friends already. I think I can say that this will be the funnest Shakespeare I’ve ever been involved in, and it’ll be sold out. It’s gonna be supermaximum craic. But … hang on, you’re wondering about the week I won. I forgot. It’s easy to get swept up.

Fool that I am I had it in my head I’d start rehearsing for Twelfth Night on Monday. I have been worried for days that I wouldn’t have the headspace around opening this show. I was galvanising myself for the overlap… Turns out there’s an extra week of existence which I hadn’t accounted for. I don’t start rehearsal for a week longer. Hell yes! More time for fun in Oxford and maybe I can get on the bike?!

I’m having a ball right now. This is precisely what I signed up for, and it’s why I do all the random dayjobs. A group of unusual emotionally connected humans telling a story together. Being part of something that might make less emotionally connected humans feel something. I’m loving this. I’m really happy right now guys.

Creation Theatre have existed for years in Oxford, with no specific venue, telling stories in unusual places. They make theatre that responds to whichever place they’ve got. They are brilliant enough and established enough in the community now that they can access really interesting places and also, crucially, find an audience. They don’t shy away from unusual things. They’re good at being unusual. It’s why we align so well. I’ve been trying to get back to Oxford to work with them for years, and they’ve been trying to get me too. It has finally worked out. Thank God . This is gonna be epic.

Their work fills that crying gap for a summer Shakespeare left by Sprite Productions ending. Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone? I miss Sprite. It really isn’t a summer for me without being swept up in some sort of joyful Shakespearean carnage that’s rightheadedly executed by humans who actually know what they’re doing. But this is the first company that’s felt like a Sprite company since those heady days in Yorkshire. There’s nowt like a rightheaded summer Shakespeare. Here some of us are. Hanging out photogenically by a pylon. Bring on this show.. Bring it. It’s gonna be amazing. Book now or they’re all gone.

The problem with predicting the apocalypse is if you’re correct then nobody can reward you and if you’re wrong you look silly. So far everybody who has ever predicted the apocalypse has (thankfully) been wrong, or they were vague enough about the date to make it roll over a few times. But in these divided times it is tempting to have a pop at the old “End of the world is nigh” business. Nowadays we’ve got the internet so we don’t have to carry heavy placards and bells around, although I’d take my tinfoil hat off to anyone who felt like giving it a go.

They’re throwing the adjectives and details around with this moon, those internet people. It’s a half blood thunder moon eclipse at midnight over Jerusalem. Oh lordy. “Rapture experts” reckon it’s a good target for the old apocalypse signal. I’m scheduling this blog for 6am tomorrow morning but maybe there’s no point. Damn.

Imagine being a rapture expert. “I’m just an apprentice. This is Bill. He’s the expert in Raptures.” “Hi Bill, how many Raptures have you experienced?” “Well, none. But I’ve read a lot of articles and I’m extremely opinionated without being curious. I just … take an idea and roll and roll and roll with it. Give me money.”

Ok, pros and cons to the apocalypse. Pro: I won’t have to tidy my bedroom. Con: I won’t get to do this crazybeautiful Tempest. Pro: We won’t have to worry about Brexit anymore. Con: We will never go back to that restaurant where we had that amazing meal. Pro: Those nasty people I don’t like will be reduced to ashes or vanished or whatever. Con: So will the nice people who I do like.

On balance I’d prefer not to explode tonight. I’ve gone to all the effort to write this for fuck’s sake. I’ve even learnt some Shakespeare.

We all imagine a big old meteor or a firestorm or zombies or Farage or Ebola. But we haven’t experienced the end of the world yet, or spoken to anyone that has. We think we are important and that our existence has significance, and we’ve consumed enough story to make us expect fireworks when we bow out as a species. Hmm. I wouldn’t be surprised if it came in the form of an algae or a creeping mold, like the jellyfish taking over the oceans. Something damp and slow and inevitable and undramatic and alien.

It’s all breaking down anyway. We are too arrogant to accept our culpability and too soft to give up our luxuries. I’m writing this on my Galaxy S9+. It’s a piece of technology I could only have dreamed of as a kid. Now we are all sucked into these screens. I often wonder if it will always be like this now until we burn, that friendship groups sit together in parks each of them separately lost in their portable screen.

So. The apocalypse. Can this privileged hippy put an order in? Can it be a massive love-in where everybody realises it’s just fear that makes them hate people they frame as different and we can all have a nice sing song and then this big old Rapture takes loads of people and nature takes over and anybody that didn’t get a ticket to the Rapture gets to hang out with nature?

I literally just saw a BADGER as I wrote the last sentence. I’ve been walkwriting through the dark park using my smartphone full of child-mined cobalt. Outside of roadkill I’ve never seen a badger. It ran away pretty quickly but it was about the size of Pickle and had a bright stripy head. We had a moment together, badger and I, before it sacked me off. My first wild badger sighting ticked off, maybe just before the Rapture. I can burn happy now, or vanish to ether or turn into a zombie or remain on this plane with Cernunnos and the badgers or whatever might be on the menu.

Meanwhile I’ll keep thinking about this show, just in case the apocalypse doesn’t quite come through this time. Maybe see you tomorrow. Maybe not.