Author: albarclay

Jerusalem is one of those plays that are universally acknowledged as being excellent. I caught it at The Royal Court for .10p standing, and managed to slip into an unoccupied seat by timing it right and keeping an eye out for latecomers. When these positive opinions are so universally upheld about a piece of art, I find myself wanting to fly in the face of them, knowing that all art is subjective: “Oh yeah, I saw Jerusalem. It didn’t do it for me.” It’s tempting, and I’ve heard people try it. But it’s bullshit as far as I’m concerned. I adored Jerusalem. There was depth and dimension in the work, there was terrific immediacy nuance and presence in the performances. I am part of the throng of people blithering on about how glad they are to have caught it. It was a tour de force. I still haven’t been blown away like Rylance managed to blow me (ooer missus, no he’s not Spacey) at the end, as he called on the old Gods, and made us all part of his summons.

I’ve been wary of going to Ferryman. It’s another long form play by the same author – Jez Butterworth – and this time the word of mouth is more complicated. “Too long” “Paddywhacking” etc are getting thrown about by actor friends. We’re a demanding lot. But I’d have been pissed off if I didn’t catch it, after loving Jerusalem so much. And my major stopping point was price. It’s the perfect opportunity tonight. Dean is in it and can get me house seats. Even if house seats are much more than my habitual maximum price, they’re still a bit cheaper, and well placed.

I met Dean last millennium, when 23 of us strode into the striplit cupboards of the old Guildhall School of Music and Drama and learnt how to not be so full of shit on stage. We learnt ensemble. Now with my grey beard, more depth, a bit less frantic energy, and a voice two octaves lower, I’m meeting up with some of the other bright eyed kids from that ensemble and we’re celebrating Deano in the West End, while catching each other and this interesting piece of work.

Too much time has passed since we were the kids from Fame. Life has pulled the 23 of us in all sorts of different directions, but those three years together were intense and they inevitably forge invisible strings. I’m worse than many at staying in touch, but I’ve always kept a loose sense of how people are doing. I’ve seen more of Dean than others because he’s still rattling around in the bottom of the crucible so we inevitably bang into one another, sometimes on purpose. I’m going to love watching him in this, just as I’m looking forward to getting a drink with him and Carla and Nick and Eva afterwards.

Yeah it’s great. I suspect it’ll run and run. It’s a bold and big web of humanity cast over a story, and there is an ensemble of powerhouses pushing in the same direction. Everyone gets a crack at the whip. There are two stories at the heart, but so many more stories in the evening. The supernatural is not so front and centre as it was in Jerusalem, but still runs through it and it’s about love and pain and time and family. It’s beautiful and sad and human. What a lovely night. Here’s a crap selfie of us all.

Brian got knocked off his motorbike last night. He’s better than he might have been. But that was a bit of a shock to the system, getting the news just before bed last night. I went to sleep not knowing whether or not his leg was broken. He was getting seen to by the lovely NHS and was okay enough to let me know he was hurt. I woke up relieved to the news that it was just badly squished – (just?), but I’m still feeling pretty worried for him. He almost cut his thumb off fixing some pipes at Carol. He literally almost stubbed it with a Stanley knife. That crazy thumb was just starting to behave like normal people’s thumbs might, plus a bit of pain, and then some idiot doesn’t check their blind spot and Brian’s on crutches and making out like he’s not in agony when he is. I need to feed him a lot of protein and red meat in order to rebuild that body. I wish there wasn’t an internal flight of stairs in my flat as he’ll have to get up and down them daily.

He’s in Croydon at Mel’s right now and I haven’t been able to hang out with him and laugh at his bruises because of dayjobbing. I was offered a week of day-job and after the boiler I need to make sure that some short-term money is coming in. So I worked the week, and kept trying to sort out the life-stuff around it, and have found myself at the end of it sitting in front of my terminal listening to the bath running in the background and wishing there was a way to sleep and write simultaneously. There probably is an app. But I don’t know it and I’m too fucked to look. I’m done for the week. Totally shattered.

Thank God Brian only fucked his leg. If you ride a motorbike you take your life into your own hands. I know this better than many considering most of my childhood was spent in a house that was on the TT course in The Isle of Man. Every year there would be multiple fatalities, spoken about almost as if they were just par for the course. Some of them were on Quarterbridge Road right outside my home. The first time I went on dad’s bike he was doing donuts in the back garden with 10 year old Al pillion and the bike slipped. I jumped clear being young and swift and surrounded by grass. Dad went down on his leg. Mum was angrier than I had ever seen her and dad was reflexively trying to pretend he wasn’t in pain but was in plenty. I never went on the back of dad’s bike again. But these memories and this early lesson that bikes are heavy and hot – it’s never going to deter my interest from the monstrous noisy lovely fuckers. If anything it’ll do the opposite. I love to poke a hornet’s nest. I just haven’t the spare cash for the bike I’d like.

If money was no object I’d have blown myself up by now somehow. I’d have been smiling all the way but I’d have got into a wingsuit and flown into a tree, or shot myself out of a cannon into the ocean or something. I still might manage it. I just need to get rich. I might prefer exploding into a tree in a laughing winged fireball than dripping my weeks into a day-job so I can have hot baths until I wake up and realise one day that my hips need replacing.

Brian’s accident has helped me remember that even the little journeys can be touch and go. I might as well put on the wingsuit if I know the route. Fuck I’d love to fly a wingsuit. But right now I’m totally battered. Put me in one right now and I’d be as agile as a coconut.

Still I had a lovely evening. A great friend came over and we helped fix each other’s heads. I feel looked after, loved and happy. Then my nephew got home. He’s off tomorrow. “It’s been great,” he said. “You’ve taught me that you can live well and happily without getting hung up on the little stuff.”

Last night I went to Flavia’s. She’s been a hugely positive force in my life for years. I first met her at a party when I was at Guildhall and she was very young. She wanted to be an actor. She was auditioning for drama schools. I helped her out by challenging her. In my experience that’s a good way of helping young artists, and artists generally. They either rise to the challenge, or take themselves out of the mix.

She tells me: “I’m auditioning for drama schools in two weeks.” “What speeches are you doing?” “No idea.” “If you come to Guildhall tomorrow evening with two speeches I can help you. If not I can’t. I’ll meet you out front at 7pm”

She showed up. She had some speeches. It’s a sad thing but monologues are still the backbone of the drama school acceptance process, despite being the least efficient way of getting a sense of an actor. I met Flavia after college and we snuck into a room and worked the ones she had chosen. It was lovely. She was hilarious and brave. I encouraged her to play and she played. She didn’t get into Guildhall dammit but she still went to a decent drama school and since then she’s been on a journey. She decided very quickly that she wasn’t an actor though.

Now she’s in theatre PR and has a brilliant bonkers son who has become a friend of mine. We play well together, Ivo and I. We always have. Back when he was a toddler we used to improvise games with each other and it seems that’ll never change. Yesterday the two of us spent a good long time improvising games. Here’s another photo of us, since I took none today. Ivo is in disguise as me. You might not be able to tell who is who.

It was beautiful to hang out with Flavia. Friendships only deepen with time. We’ve had lots of time.

I hung out with her and Ivo last night, and then got home to find my brother Jeremy. His son Campbell is on my sofa this week, but I didn’t expect Jeremy. He’s been in Egypt teaching art, and before that in Hong Kong. Now he’s back, and looking towards making a habitation out of some troglodytic caves that he inexplicably bought in the Loire Valley many years ago. By the time I was home I was already smashed and suddenly I was having to think practically about how my brother could live in a cave. Of course my go-to was unhelpful from his perspective. “Make it a massive party venue. If you do it right there’ll be people from all the nearby villages that are desperate for somewhere cool to go.”

I spent the morning with him, mostly motivating action. The caves he owns are huge and beautiful. There’s not much room for audience or I’d be thinking of them as a performance venue. They’re a venue for happenings though. But Jeremy is terrifically demotivated regarding them. They just sit there. With work they could be a living space or a performance space or – anything you care to make of a big empty cave. But it’s got to be better than what they are now. Right now they’re just big damp caves in France.

Someone emailed me yesterday asking me to work for free. This happens more frequently than you would credit in my industry. Sometimes I dismiss it immediately – usually when it’s evident that loads of money is being spent on production and they’ve just gone “ahh we can save by not paying the actors.” This time I haven’t said yes yet, but I haven’t said no yet either. It’s a very short time commitment. I might enjoy myself. All those treacherous little thoughts are swimming through my head.

I like my work. It’s a craft I’ve spent a lot of time and money honing, and for which I have made some quite significant sacrifices and life-choices. But there are plumbers out there that could likely say the same thing. Dean who fixed my boiler was learning on the job. He was enjoying his work, despite running into difficulty. He got shot with adrenaline when he overcame the problem, and he drove home smiling and probably about £700 richer. If I’d put an ad up saying I couldn’t pay but it would be a great opportunity to fix an interesting boiler, with as much coffee as you want and a friendly cat… well, at best I’d still be cold and at worst some idiot would’ve blown my flat up. Just because I like my work, it doesn’t follow that I am therefore happy to do it for nothing – (or in these circumstances, technically I’d be paying to work, factoring in tube fares etc.)

And yet, I haven’t said “no” yet. What’s that about?

Let’s look at my history here. I did an unpaid gig in a pub theatre. I didn’t even like the script and I still did it. The journalists didn’t like the script either. More harm than good. But then I frequently volunteer for Scene and Heard. I help kids grow in confidence and I make good friends, and have fun being moles and bacteria and travel-cups. More good than harm. I accept an unpaid film and die ridiculously in a council block fire escape, killed by a terrible werewolf. I get soaked and ruin a shirt I love. The footage is never edited and the director vanishes. One day maybe it’ll show up on a clip show. “Do you remember doing THIS?” *facepalm* But then I do a short for a quid and it leads to good exposure and good friendships, and money down the line…

I’m going to sleep on it. And then I think I’m going to say “no”. She’s a young director, she’s not profiting, I’d like to help her out. It won’t be a huge amount of time. But there’s no point working if you’re not 100% sold, as my reputation stands on every choice I make. And now I take the time to write about it I realise that I’m not sold on the script either. It’s a single joke stretched into ten minutes, and it’s very much on the nose.

All that aside, I told myself I wouldn’t work for free outside of Scene and Heard and, circumstantially, The Factory, who have often been able to pay me and have always paid in challenge, love and friendship.

And yet still I’ll sleep on it. And then tomorrow like a sucker I’ll wake up all optimistic and say “Yes yes I’ll do it! I’m helpful Al! Hooray for helpful Al.”.

Punch me if I do.

Time passage

(I hung out with Ivo as per the photo.) I said no. But it was hard. Everything seemed predicated against me writing  tonight. All my WordPress apps crashed repeatedly. Done now. Sleep…

Back when I worked on the boats, at this time of year there would be a huge number of Christmas trees floating in the river. I’d have to keep an eye out as they could foul the engines. Hilarious to throw them in the river if you’re a drunk idiot, bothersome as hell to navigate around them if you’ve got a twin engined RIB.

This time of year was my best time of work on those boats, because it’s bloody freezing. I’d get home sometimes and lie in a hot bath for hours, topping up all the time yet still shivering if I got out. Most of the guides were mysteriously unavailable in the cold months so weirdly I got more hours than in sunny times. I didn’t care. I was happy to enthusiastically freeze for money. I wanted to earn. Plus I loved working that river. There’s plenty to see. The skies are amazing. The tides are so huge that there’s always something sucked into the mix. I saw all sorts floating in there. Dead rats. Doors. Balloons. Footballs. Chemical toilets. Empty fuel cans. Stuffed toys. Inflatable sheep. Huge planks. Scum. Loads of buoys… I used to haul buoys out all the time. Thankfully no dead bodies although many of my colleagues had seen them. There’s a community among Thames workers. I still think about how I loved that job. But… Personalities…

The way in which Christmas trees are dumped is a good illustration of how many people are encouraged to go blithely from festival to festival and lose the periods in between to thankless repetitive work. They cost a load of money. They feel like an important thing to have. Then as soon as the season is over we have to throw them away because of Twelfth Night.

And immediately the big supermarkets start hammering out Easter eggs in special deals. “Forget the periods in between, serf. Just work. Easter is coming! Buy chocolate and dream of your Easter bank holiday. Earn money! Swallow your pride! Buy chocolate things or whatever else we say you want, I dunno a pet rabbit? Rabbits are Easter! Buy stuff! Buy! Plus don’t forget Valentine’s Day! Make sure you can afford a big meal or some jewellery or something – anything – as long as it’s a little bit out of your budget otherwise you don’t love the person you say you love. Singles? We’ve got you covered! Horrible uncomfortable first date experiences!! Have a big mouth coming at you after a dull conversation! Just let it happen! Everyone else compromises! Compromise! Compromise!!”

I’ve got my nephew staying. He got a megabus from Aberdeen and then skateboarded from the coach station and arrived before I was awake, at about 6.50am. He’s 21. He went immediately this morning to the iconic skate park on the south bank, snapped his board, made some friends, replaced his snapped board cheaply, and got back to it. He came all the way down here in order to see the first ever large scale Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibition in the UK.

It’s brilliant to spend time with someone from my own family who prioritises things that other people don’t. Yes, come to London to see an art exhibition, and then spend all your money immediately on a new skateboard! Both of those things are a better long-term investment than a Christmas tree.

Maybe this is what growing up means. Spending one thousand pounds on fixing a boiler, instead of buying an Oculus Rift. God. A thousand quid. Now I’m sitting in my flat and the ambient temperature is pleasant. Pickle is happily roving rather than finding a soft bit near a heater and camping out. I have nothing flashy to show for my money but Brian, Mel, Pickle and I will be warm, and maybe this will help me to deal with this worrying cough that I’ve started developing.

It has been a long time coming, this fix. Almost a year. Now my flat is not an apology-zone. Although my bedroom still needs some work. But everyone works better when they aren’t freezing. It’s time to turn my room into a sanctuary for Al, where I can collapse into something that makes me smile. That’s the next step. Homemaking.

Dean the plumber came round in the morning. Brian and Mel let him in as I was out early, day-jobbing for peanuts. Dean had been working for about 4 hours by the time I got in at lunchtime, and he was looking very low status. I like Dean the plumber, and I trust his integrity, but he was ducking and diving physically when I got home, making brief eye contact, evasive. He had been running into multiple obstacles. It was a bigger job than he’d anticipated. He was worried he wouldn’t get it working.

He asked me almost immediately: “Did the heating ever work in this flat?” “Yes, mate. It worked for years. I had Australians living here. They used to turn it into a sauna.” Brian helped me remember that, having paid Dean Christmas, I needed to get my money’s worth. This job needed to be finished. He wasn’t going to have to work half as hard as I did in December, but being compassionate to his lack of understanding was not going to help get the job finished. He’d been paid handsomely to do it. I needed to see it done. As the man said, “A grand don’t come for free.”

Two tense hours later, he had it. I was trying to pretend not to notice him worrying, whilst batting off all his attempts to tell me it was an impossible job. He had gone into Brian’s room to make a surreptitious panic call to a friend as far from me as he could, and I pretended not to notice but listened. He then unjammed the diverter valve. And from that, it all started working again. Phew. Down the line I might need a new diverter valve. But A: I know that now. £350. And B: I had a hot bath, and emerged from it into a warm flat. God it’s making such a difference. In all honesty, I’m expecting it to blow up in my face. But maybe it won’t. Maybe it won’t.

Back into the fray now. Time see if the universe can find a way to solve the boiler expense. I have no doubt that it will, if I keep myself open to possibilities and continue to work hard to make chances. Meanwhile I’m going to have a warm night’s sleep.

Walking tonight from my friend’s to Finsbury Park tube, 5 people stopped and asked me for change. It’s a cold night in London. The wind is up, and cutting through whatever we might have to wear. I don’t envy anyone sleeping outside in this. Despite the climate, we have little portable shanties popping up after hours, and people taking possession of small sheltered areas of street as night closes in. They must be freezing anyway, despite their enforced creativity. There are little houses made of sheets and duvets and cardboard and whatever else. There’s a self-regulating community. “Lou asked me not to let anyone else sit on her bed.” “It’s cold.” “I’ll take your chocolate if you don’t get off.”

I rarely have change these days. Considering we voted so firmly against identity cards in the nineties, it’s odd how we have all subsequently made ourselves entirely trackable with contactless payment via phone and card. But this convenient trend for paying for everything online is probably playing havoc with the chances of homeless people getting shelter for cash if there’s a transaction involved for them to get it. We can all say “no” so much easier these days and be honest. “Sorry, got no cash.” And our worldweary prejudice and received opinion leads us to worry that if we do have cash and we give it to homeless people direct it just goes on nebulous criminal things like drugs. Having never been homeless I’m not sure. As ever I want to believe the best of people. But that’s a preoccupation that has burnt me a few times in the past so now I question my optimism too.

People can be ace though. I don’t know the exact figure, but we raised over 3,300 for Centre Point last month after Carol. Just via audience donation on the way out. I’m thrilled about that, because I wouldn’t want to have to sleep out in this crap, no matter what my history, and no matter what I was addicted to. Literally as I wrote that sentence I walked onto a reasonably empty tube and saw this dude.

Someone went up to him (the retreating guy in the red hat) as I got on the carriage. “Hey hey wakey wakey – are you ok?” … … (eventually something inaudible along the lines of : “Leave me alone, I’m fine.”)

Good shout that homeless dude, finding a warm sleep at a quiet time on the tube. There were only about 4 people in the carriage at Victoria which is the epicentre. For one fare he can go back and forth. District line to Richmond is a long run, you’ll get a reasonable warm nap if some clown doesn’t misread the situation and literally use the words “wakey wakey” when you’re halfway there. He should make a sign that says “I’m fine. Just sleeping.”

Tomorrow, in theory, I’ll have a working boiler. I’m paranoid that, even after all the spending, it’s going to be some deeper problem and I’ll just be buggered. But hell, I’ve got a roof over my head. And a nice one too.

My washing machine doesn’t heat the water itself. The element blew. So I plumbed it into the hot water, and you run the temperature by adjusting the water temperature on the boiler. It’s one of the many workarounds that I’ve become an expert in over the years that my income has been … unpredictable. It’s been like that for ages, and it’s fine as long as you don’t try to tumble-dry anything in which case it just rolls your clothes around a cold barrel for hours. But it’s a workable system. Until your hot water conks out. Like it has.

We haven’t been able to get the stain of Pickle’s dirty protest out of the duvet. We both have a backlog of washing. With no dryer you have to hang it around the flat, and with no heat in the flat it takes days to dry fully. It was getting unmanageable. Jack came round the other night and commented that there was a clothes mountain on my bedroom floor. He tasked me with sorting it out. That’s something I can do while I’m sick. Sort clothes.

Brian and I splashed out and got an app to do our laundry. Someone will come round with a van. We will give him loads of bags. It will all come back washed. It’s like expensive magic. You can even send dry cleaning. And first time users get 25% off which would be amazing if it wasn’t aimed at City workers – “workwear deal – 10 suits and 10 collared shirts”… Still, with 25% off, it’s about right. I sent my 3 piece and my restaurant suit and bags of laundry meticulously weighed by luggage scale. It’s exactly the sort of thing I shouldn’t be doing when Dean the plumber is about to prance off with a grand. But I’ve got an important meeting coming up a week on Tuesday and I want to come at it looking and feeling good. My 3 piece will help. Socks and pants that I’ve only worn once will augment. Trousers and shirts without toothpaste stains will seal the deal. This way I get all the clothes out of my bedroom mountain, and then while the magic people do the washing I can make sure my room is ready to receive them. Then I can get them all back, smash all the meetings, sleep in lovely sheets and generally win at clothes. Rather than wear exactly the same shirt and jumper combo for over a week, like I did in the final week of Carol, knowing that even if anyone noticed they wouldn’t comment.

I’ve picked up this hacking cough from somewhere. Probably being cold all the time and wearing filthy shirts. Rather than go out and do expensive things in the cold I’m staying home, eating well and keeping as warm as I can. So as I write I’m making peppermint tea while a dry-January version of Tristan shoots Stormtroopers in the living room. This weekend is pointedly quiet and cheap. That might be the shape of things for the next few weeks. Although damn I’d still like to get to LA even just for a couple of weeks in February to build on last year. And get some sun. But first let’s see what the universe brings once the boiler is fixed.

Oh boy. I just cooked myself a huge dinner and now I’m replete and dozy. Today has been a good day. Lots of opportunities. Two interesting future projects kicking off. And a quote for the boiler the burnt my eyebrows off. I’ve said yes. On Monday someone will come round the flat, do lots of things with chemicals and circuit boards, and leave with Christmas. It comes and it goes. insha’Allah.

I’m relaxing now. It doesn’t help that the meeting I had earlier involved a bottle of wine at 3pm. But it was worth it as there’ll be lovely work in a few weeks as a result of the meeting. The wine was optional, but felt like the right thing at the time.

I want a bath. I feel stinky. The dude downstairs in my block keeps asking if I’m alright. I don’t want anyone to get too close to me in case I gas them. And I’ve just come off an intensive job. There’ll always be a slump. I’m telling him I’m fine, because I am. But I’m also, inevitably, not fine. I’ve chosen a strange existence. Feast and famine. Bouts of frantic activity, followed by the opposite. Regular money coming in, followed by the plumber dancing out the window with it all just when the final tranche lands.

The problem with ending a job is that your immune system allows itself to collapse, after working hand over fist to get the show on. I’ve been snotty Scrooge for the last two weeks, but now I understand that my body was fighting bronchial Scrooge, knowing full well that if I spent all night coughing I wouldn’t be able to talk. Now I’m coughing constantly, which always scares me as I had double pneumonia and my lungs collapsed when I was a kid. But I’ll be fine as long as I look after myself. Two more days of living in a cold flat and then I can put the heating on and have a bath and I’ll just have to give my firstborn to the electricity company in recompense.

Brian just got home and asked if I was okay too. It’s been such a positive day. It really isn’t every day you get two lovely jobs thrown in your direction, particularly in this game. Neither came for free. One involved a recorded pitch when I was vocally exhausted and cat-sitting miles away from my home studio. I recorded it at midnight, shattered and over it, but somehow – against the odds – it did the trick. The other involved two consecutive days in prosthetic make-up and a neck brace connecting with the part of me that might have grown up to wrap a sports car around a tree. 5 years later and the director wants to collaborate on a lovely poetic short.

In fact, the time since I came off this job has been almost unremittingly positive. I’m just tired and grouchy, sick again, plus a bit cold. And I had half a bottle of wine before 6pm which is lethal.