Author: albarclay

I’m back home, and running a bath. 4 days in a tent in a field in Oxfordshire. I didn’t shower. I only washed my hands with water and soap once. The rest of the time it was just horrible foamy sanitiser, from the dispensers on the side of the vile plastic festival loos. And occasional face wipes to get off the makeup. There are showers at Wilderness with hot running water. It really is the most middle class festival possible. I should’ve used them, but I didn’t.

There are only a few sound-stages, but the quality of the programming is high. We had Grace Jones on the last night, naked in white body paint at 69 with a bunch of acrobats, and looking amazing for it. The festival has a full orchestra all of its own. They play film soundtracks on the last night. At The Forum, there’s a variety of spoken word and comedy. The folk tent has little known bands who are glad to be there and giving it large. Even the main stage is giving rare chances. On the first night, The Turbans finished their set saying “Thanks. We are not a main stage band.” Then they all took a bow. It was beautifully humble after a great set.

There will be big names from time to time there, but more often smaller yet significant names. The “lost” musician Rodriguez played Cold Fact a few years ago, shortly after the wonderful documentary “Searching for Sugarman” was released about him. I stood next to an ecstatic South African couple who had come all the way from Johannesburg to watch him play. The evening was perfect. He hauled his broken body into a chair and played to a perfect sky. The guys next to me held hands and wept.

I think I’ll keep going to that festival if I can, and make it to ten years. It’s given me many happy times. I’ve made it work with some tricky schedules. It’s only 2 hours from London which makes it rushable. And over the years I’ve gathered a wonderful group of friends that meet there yearly. It’s a collection of international misfits, all working hard in their respective spheres, all using the festival to depressurise.

And I’ve certainly depressurised. I feel great. Ready to get back into the fight. I’m aware of a double headed problem. First, that I have been longer than ever without a good long acting job. Second that I’ve been documenting my day to day, so that’s publicly available information. It’s time to get back to headbutting the wall. I feel I need to invest some money in some casting director workshops or some such, just to get back in the game. I’ve always balked at paying for them, but it works for some people so it must be worth a try. I’ve been at this long enough that I know what I’m doing. Much as I love these festival jobs, I can’t keep doing them into my sixties, sleeping in freezing tents on deflating mattresses among the spiders. When I get paid for all this catering I’ll invest some of my I’ll gotten gains. Meantime I’m going to scrape off the accumulated crust from my body and turn in for an early bed.

“Let’s go and learn how to make cut glass coasters!” “Yoga is at 12.” “Anyone want a swim in the lake?” That’s the morning here. Children running around everywhere, parents about my age covered in glitter. Wholesome activities executed wholesomely. Meanwhile the likes of Yotam Ottolenghi prepare banquets in a marquee for a selection of organised people who book months in advance. There’s a spa that books out early too, in seven years I’ve never been. But even as Tarquin goes for his gong bath in the healing fields there’s another festival gradually groaning into wakefulness back in the campsites.

Somehow the weather is usually good for these three days. The long nights have mostly been dry. As the day reaches its height, an army of colourful zombies stumbles into the site. They wear the heads of lions, or antlers, or pirate hats, or devil horns or shocking wigs. The zombies come seeking sustenance, their steps heavy, their eyes wide. They descend on the meat trucks and juicily devour all they can afford. They are waiting for the dark.

Tarquin and the zombies gather together before the few small stages and vocally appreciate shining noisy people. “Yayyy” says Tarquin. “Uuuuurgh” say the zombies. “Bang crash wallop” says the band. Everybody cheers. Tarquin is confused by the zombies. “Mother, why is that man trying to eat his own arm?” The zombies are concerned by Tarquin: “Not here, look, there’s a kid. Put it away.” But the dark is coming. It’s time for Tarquin to go to bed. He goes, his parents occasionally glancing over their shoulders as they head to the campsite. And then a miraculous transformation begins.

The zombies, sensing the lack of Tarquin, know that their time has come. They begin to consume magical drinks, pills and mushrooms. They lick bits of paper and each other and maybe even toads. They put things up their nose or even their bottom. They inhale smokes and vapours and spirits. And they transform. First they switch on little lights on their hats and coats, to shine through the darkness, to not get lost. And then as the night draws in, the zombies become Tarquin. They run and play and dance, immune to consequence, pulling cross eyed faces, laughing at nothing, repeating the same jokes, repeating the same laughs, wide eyed idiot children seeing the world anew. Selfish and obvious and strange and trapped in freedom. Joyful and desperate, like the end of the world. Fueled by light and music in this beautiful woodland until dawn is close, and “Come on Tarquin, we’re going for a swim in the lake” heralds the changing of the guard and the Tarquinzombies fly back to their canvas chrysalis, and pupate in their sleeping bags to become just zombies once more for the morning.

My “work” is fun, but because we are obvious and silly we get mobbed by Tarquins whose parents are glad to have a focus for their random energy for a bit. “You can have them,” they smile. It means I am rising relatively early and doing wholesome things as well as trying to join the night time rollercoaster.

Festivals are bizarre. Thousands of people trapped in a field, pretending to have fun. The experience is utterly weather dependent and today we can’t depend on the weather. I’m waiting once more for the people I’m working with. It’s going to be another slow start, but festivals and work are a bit like oil and water for some people. We will make it work.

—

We did. Today was mostly about managing crazy children. Now I’m back at the campsite and about to change and go out for the evening. I’m using this time in a field to properly unwind. It’s a strange way to unwind. The nights are freezing cold, there is constant noise, you have to stumble through nettles to have a pee. On the site thousands of people crush together in queues for nothing much that take hours. But I have good friends here now, and I feel a part of these woods now having been here so many consecutive years. This year I’m on antibiotics and my rib is still not ideal which limits the extent of what I can do. But I’m still planning on going in and seeing some lovely things this evening, and dancing as much as my rib will let it.

I just put my phone down. “I’m not feeling it. I want to get into the festival now and unwind. But I know that if I don’t write this now I’ll never get it done.” “Do you have to write much?” says Mel. “Just write a paragraph and have done with it.” Good shout, I say. I will probably write up this whole experience properly once it’s finished.

So I was given the keys to a van full of yellow stuff and ridiculous props and told that my job is to make people Happy. Then I was given two other people’s phone numbers. Problem is the other people couldn’t communicate with me easily and none of them knew what we were supposed to do. And nor did I. And they were both late.

First of all I waited under a tree for an hour and a half and then I met Abbie. Abbie was great but I greeted her badly. I opened with “I could’ve got some people on my campsite to have done this.” She rolled with it. And we started to problem solve. The other actor wasn’t there at all and so we decided to just get the stuff and do it.

Cut to the two of us humping all sorts of random crap through a campsite while I’m on the megaphone already announcing the presence of the Ministry of Happy, and checking people’s happiness levels as we crossed the campsite. Dressed in utterly ridiculous brilliant yellow jumpsuits. And Abbie is brilliant and extremely diplomatic. She reminds me of how I opened our exchange once we have bonded. She just gets on with it. It’s ace.

Half an hour after I’ve met her we are improvising in front of strangers, running round with measures and pumps and mirrors and ropes. Madness. Utter madness. And with two complete strangers attempting to make sense of it. It was lovely. I think the reason I love performance work, or one of them, is that you have to meet total strangers and immediately form a bond with them. Within two hours, Abbie and I had forged a funny positive nuanced working relationship which then disbanded immediately as she was only doing today.

I’m getting ribbed in the campsite now for writing my blog. By people who are reading it. “We need a bit less “Al” in Al’s blog,” says Nim. He’s right. But right now, Al is off to see Two Door Cinema Club. And Al is happy that he made things work for the people that made this festival work for him…

Posting this without any reread or edit and a generic picture that I preloaded from the website. Internet is rare and spotty here. Phone battery life is precious. You might not even get the picture…

Seven years ago I first came up to do Wilderness Festival. I was in a piece called “Bugs” and as far as I remember I had some form of mental illness. I got the script on the morning of the show. It was strange.The next year I came up again. Did I do the Odyssey? I think maybe I did. Yes. I took so my clothes off and came out of a stand of bracken with a hat for modesty in book 6 to be found by Nausicaa. It’s entirely textual. The third year it was the Odyssey again, in the driving rain, under a tree with loads of glowsticks and a small group of committed audience. I loved The Odyssey. Wonderful. Mad. Dark. Strange. Immediate. Varied. It’s funny to think I improvised the Odyssey consistently for about 2 years with some amazing voyagers. Happy strange fun times. I miss them.

The next year I was back again and I delivered a neuroscience lecture in The Forum with PowerPoint. Then I did a piece about Transhumanism which is feeling more and more prescient. I got the lecture three minutes before I delivered it. I had never seen the slides before. It went down brilliantly. Natch. The fifth year I wrote a radio play about punching cows and growing tomatoes. It was performed in the same place I had delivered the lecture. I lay on my back and listened. Then the year after that I drove some lovely people out to the festival and they paid me to be their chauffeur with a ticket. I adored them for that. We are still mates. I just hugged them all. Last year it was so much a part of my calendar that I still wanted to go. I was filming until Friday night though, so I couldn’t commit to a show. I actually bought a ticket. I paid £100 via Gumtree. It was strange being there with no job, but relaxing. I’ve always stayed in public camping anyhow so I can camp with my friends and because it’s closer to the lakes for swimming. But not having the performer band almost caused me problems on arrival. The guy wouldn’t let me in as I was “too late” so I had to sleep in my car, apparently. Thankfully I knew enough to drive round to performers where they were kind enough to let me blag through the gate. “Delivery for The Factory. They need this for the show late tonight. It’s an emergency.” “Yeah mate, of course it is. Go on. If you see a guy with a beard, let me know. The other gate are on the radio saying not to let him in.”

I’m happy to be back again, which is just as well because Happy is my job. I’m working for the Ministry of Happy. Measuring the public levels of happiness and administering more in case of emergency. So I’m here. I set my tent up in the rain. Once again I’m in this particular field with old friends. This is going to be delightful. And I’m posting this now with a generic photo just so it’s done and I can get stuck in. Aaaaaaaaargh

Also the internet will get flooded soon. And my phone will die.

Trains are bloody marvelous but hell they’re expensive. How can they justify charging £106.20 for an off peak day return from London to Leeds? It’s not my expense account that suffers, it comes out of Teach First. But Teach First is hardly made of money. It seems excessive. It’s why I prefer to have a car. I’m in a train heading back from some work for Baz training teachers. It’s been a lovely day.

I like to look out of the window and watch the world go by on trains. Oh England etc. On a day like this you get flashes of beauty and question, too quick. “What’s that, on the hill?” “I can’t see it.” “Well it’s gone now.”

The evening is perfect though so all the unrecognisable things look briefly beautiful, and this train is fast. Not £106.20 fast but fast. Cathedrals, corn fields and violets. Little stone towns and big concrete blots on the landscape. Angry graffiti and cows and pylons.

I somehow seem to get into relationships with women who have entirely unusual relationships with trains. It’s changed my perception of the things. One old flame just loved them. Loved them. Oh how she loved being on trains. If I’d been doing well financially back then I’d have got her birthday tickets for the Trans-Siberian or the Oriental Express or both and then I’d have died of a heart attack with a smile on my face. Probably best I couldn’t, but mmmm…

Another wonderful woman who ran alongside me for a while had a childhood fear that she could never quite shake. She suspected that there was only one place in the world, and it was where she was. It’s the pathology that led to The Truman Show. When she got in a train, the doors would close, and the windows were large video screens. They then played videos of a pretend journey while armies of people ran around swapping Leeds for London. Other people had the job of rocking the train and making weird noises. Actors had conversations on the train to further authenticate. Then she would exit to find all the workers pretending to be normal people. It was a child’s narcissistic paranoia, but she couldn’t quite shake it. I found it hilarious and worrying. Mostly hilarious.

Maybe she was right. Nowadays one of the theories de jour is that we are all living in a simulation. I’ve had moments in the past where I’ve spotted what could’ve been a glitch in the matrix. I suspect we all have. Things not quite adding up. But that could be as much about our brain hallucinating reality than that we are conscious simulations. Right now I’m pretty convinced I’m on a train that is moving from London to Leeds. I think this is the real world. But a few days ago I saw that policeman move.

I can see the appeal of simulation theories, and narcissistic constructions, but I don’t like anything that takes away consequence. If I throw a stone I want there to be a ripple.

I’m off into a field tomorrow to be with a load of people picking at the layers of reality via varying levels of substance abuse. I’m on antibiotics which will mean I have to be careful what I put into myself. I’ll probably limit it to food and care. But I’ll still be living in a field for a few days and jumping in a lake every morning to swim. Ok I’ll be doing it in the company of 30 thousand stoned people talking about quinoa. But I’ll put my hippy hat on. I may or may not be able to write about it. There’s a strong chance my phone will run out and I’ll have no reception. So we might have a service interruption. I hope not, but it seems worryingly possible. Like simulation theory.

I’m not looking after myself at the moment. My rib is so much better, thankfully, but it’s still mending. I sneezed twice today with no painkillers, and both times it was shit but manageable. But there’s details like the fact that the torn out quick of my thumb has gone septic to the extent I’m on antibiotics. My body can only do so much. It’s trying…

Right now I’m sitting on the sofa beside a box of 100 assorted glowsticks. I’m trying to switch my head into packing for Wilderness Festival, but tomorrow I’m off to Leeds to teach teachers which is a totally different headspace. Meantime I’m still coming to terms with quite how much I hated working at the golf. Plus my septic thumb hurts and the last thing I feel I’m ready for right now is four nights in a tent. But perhaps it’s what I need. It will be relaxing if I let it be relaxing. But I’ve been trying to wind down for days and not really managing.

So I’m sitting at home, missing loads of people I love who are doing beautiful things at Gerry’s in Soho. There’s an evening of sharing, poetry and music, fronted by some deeply lovely people. It will be beautiful. In fact, fuck it. I’m going. Yes I’m working tomorrow. Yes I feel sad and weird and a bit sick. Best reason. I’ve just booked an uber. I’m walking out the door. You’re getting this live, kids.

—–

I’m in the uber. With Abraham. He must have farted just before I got in. Bastard. He was trying to hot box me with it but I expressed disgust vocally (by mistake) and reached for the window switch. He immediately dropped all four windows and guiltily asked “Are you okay?” He’ll still get 5 stars because this is England. If he knifed me and stole my clothes it might drop to 4 stars. 3 stars? Genocide.

—-

I’ve hit Gerry’s. This little tiny glorious underground club in Soho. I’ve rehearsed here. I’ve had bitter arguments here. I’ve laughed here. I’ve sang here. Now I’m live blogging here. They just tried to make me sit in the front row but tonight I am the dude that sits at the back and let’s the sexy people be sexy while I write about them. It’s The Amazing Devil next. New material. This is Maddy and Robbie and band. They were staying in my flat when they put down their first album. Their first album is bloody great. Get it.

They’ve started now. “Give me back my heart you wingless thing.” It’s a highly performative classical folk rock life passion smash act. Maddy is one of the most connected and immediate performers I know, across the board. The gig, even here in this tiny room, is being executed with utter conviction passion and skill. Someone needs to put these guys on a festival stage. My mood is changing. I’m going to let it change and drop my blog until later.

—-

Glorious. I’m still feeling sick but it’s happy sick now. Although a smidgeon too close to nauseous to be entirely comfortable. And I keep sneezing. I’m not particularly well, in the final analysis. Ach well. I have talented and passionate friends. The Amazing Devil amongst them. I just hope I’m not sick in the bus home.

Five years ago I lay in a hospital bed for two days with latex all over my face. There was a “Red” camera a few inches from my nose looking down on my features, catching my twitches, and there were loads of lights and reflectors pointing at me. The sound guy stuck a microphone to my thumb at one point. “You can keep it still. I’ve been watching you.” Mostly I lay there. Occasionally I growled something. I was in a neck brace for the whole two days while working. I noticed it affected my voice with sustained use, and thought that for consistency it would be better not to take it off in the breaks. We had one take per shot, two in a pinch. In the bed next to me was a lovely old guy who had no idea what he was saying or when, and occasionally actually fell asleep during shots. Someone was detailed to wake him for takes. It had to be efficient but it never felt rushed. We had a lovely two days. I made some friends who I still see now. Time pressure can bring people together. And all I had to do was lie in a bed and growl.

We were making a short film called The View From The Window. It was written and directed by a remarkable woman – A D Cooper. Alice Cooper, but she’s asked me to introduce her as “A D” because she’s justifiably bored of comments about “Welcome to my Nightmare.” I respect that. I get so many bank jokes. So. Many. Bank. Jokes.

We’ve become good friends. She is from a naval family as I am, so the photos of her dad strongly remind me of photos of my grandad. And the poor woman has a large photo of my face on the door of her home office. It’s a miracle she still speaks to me having to walk past that every day. But she does.

Today she gave me some of her homemade honey to help my rib heal (she keeps bees). She also gave me solid advice about broken bone recovery. She’s probably had a fair few, witnessed a fair few, caused a fair few. She played Rugby for Richmond, and was press officer and organiser of the first women’s Rugby World Cup in 1991. Nowadays when women’s sport is being more widely recognised across the board, she’s a trailblazer. Now she’s making and writing films. She’s a brilliant human and goes out into the world to change it. I rarely take my hat off, but I certainly take it off to her. She also bought me sausage and mash by the river for lunch. Like me she lives by the river. As my naval grandfather insisted “The sea is in your blood. You’ll always need to live by water.” I see that in her.

She’s recently been experimenting with poetic shorts. She did a beautiful one about the River Thames (sea/blood etc), and then won two days use of an Alexa (essentially a very good camera.) She used that time to shoot a gorgeous tribute to the doomed WW1 poet Edward Thomas on it. She employed my friend and fellow Factory member Alex Bartram. I saw it today and it’s beautiful and whimsical, as her work always is. It’s screening again on Thursday night in town at BAFTA.

Here’s the blurb. It’s just a comfort to know someone who is making things because she wants to, and making them as well as she can under constraints.

There are so many transferable skills that we pick up in the line of duty. As often as not, practitioners end up spending more time transferring them that they spend practicing them. The amount of times I’ve had the thought “What is he doing running that workshop, he’s barely ever worked?” There are lots of people I can think of who trade off one big job, or someone they’ve assisted or worked for, to set themselves up as full time teachers of various aspects of the craft. We all need to make money. We all have something to teach, even if it’s just confidence. But it’s noticeable how many people rely on other people’s names to lend their own name credence.

Typically, since starting this blog I’ve publicly hit one of my longest ever spells without a consistent acting job. Hopefully before long I’ll be presented with the challenge of detailing the nitty-gritty of a rehearsal process. But for now it’s continuing the little weird jobs and pushing for TV work, and writing about the strange detail. So if I’m not going to do stuff I hate for cash then I need to start working out where the line is.

I have been asked to teach some teachers. I went to a training session today to run a workshop for them about physical presence in a room. I think I might find that rewarding and be good at it, and it’ll help me focus on those crucial first seconds in the audition room. It’s interesting work. I loved my studies at Guildhall with Patsy Rodenberg, and a lot of it was to do with presence. A lot of teachers feel the need to play a character in order to dominate a room. I’ll be working with young teachers in their first year of training to show them they can just be fully present and not have to restrict to the idea of a “character”, and give them tools to do it.

August is traditionally a quiet time because half of my industry is up at the Edinburgh Festival. But that also makes it easier to get castings if you’re not familiar to the casting director already. All of their tall sad funny clever posh men are at the fringe being funny or sad or clever or posh, so they can fill their spare slot with someone they haven’t met yet. I’ve had a good hit rate booking jobs in August so I’m sanguine something will come if I look for it. But in the meantime it looks like it’ll be teaching teachers.

I’m glad to be home. It’s been a long journey back from the golf, but you need to cover ground sometimes to leave things behind. Tristan and I had lamb with another of the victims of that tournament today. It was a happy, convivial evening with kind people. It left me smiling and extremely relaxed. So relaxed that I’m about to pass out, but I think that might be because I couldn’t resist a cocodamol top-up and now I can feel it beckoning me into the mire.

Tristan and I are watching the cricket highlights while I’m struggling not to fall over from painkiller use. “England’s biggest collapses”. I’m next.

What a horrible drive. Sheets of rain slamming out of the sky. Flooded roads. Vile. I stopped off in Reading in the hope it would get better, but it only got worse.

I know Reading. My parents sent me to university there against my will. They were pulling out all the stops to prevent me from going to drama school. Their correspondence from this period has been largely preserved because they were already divorced so they wrote to each other. And the phrase “until he gets it out of his system” comes up countless times. My brother had been to Reading University on purpose, so mum knew it existed. I woke up one morning and my mother had phoned the English department, which was coincidentally flooded with female applicants, and told them my grades. She secured me a place through clearing. “Three years will be enough for him to get this acting nonsense out of his system,” my father had written. She then marched me to the phone and made me confirm the place. I never forgave her for it while she was alive, but I made the call. It was the source of so many arguments, right up until she died. But I did it. I wasn’t yet mature and self-defined enough to combat parental pressure like that. I forgive her for forcing me to do it now though. She thought she was acting out of love, not fear. And I could’ve walked. I didn’t. She told me I wouldn’t have a roof over my head if I didn’t make the call but that was just words. I could’ve got a job and worked something out but I didn’t. It was all a bit unexpected, which was the main thing. I had it all lined up for drama school but the plug got pulled. But I know from reading their correspondence that this was mutual parental care. They didn’t want this lifestyle for me.

I miss her. She was a good mum and cared about me. I miss both my parents. Dad was a brilliant man and made so much possible. They just didn’t know me as well as they might have, but I was the youngest of many. “Get it out of his system.” Pffft. It was wired in my blood, even then. Still, I ended up at Guildhall years later once university was done and dad was no longer there to fight it. And Guildhall was an extraordinary school, and exactly what I needed.

In Reading I stopped briefly at my (unrecognisable) old student pub, and raised a shandy to my mum and dad for their awkward love.

Then to Castle Street for Sweeney and Todds pie shop. It used to be part of a run of three perfect consecutive shops owned by the same people – a pie shop next to a barber, and a butcher in the other side. So the customer can be amused by the reference to murderers, but know where their meat is coming from (or at least hope they know – the butcher, not the barber!) Now the butcher has gone, but the barber is still there and so are the tasty meat pies… Worrying.

I didn’t think too much about it, I just bought a load of pies, avoided having my hair cut, and missioned back home in the rain.

I’m so glad to be back in London in this flat I only have because of my parent’s passing. I’m working tomorrow in the morning and then slow roast lamb. Omnomnom. In a short time away, I’ve discovered some valuable things about myself and how I keep doing things I don’t want to do, to punish myself. Knowing as I have for years that my lost parents both spoke of my vocation in the same language as you’d speak of a disease has been tricky over time. But that was just their care for me mistranslated. They could never be happy living as I do. I am. But not when I’m doing stuff like that golf tournament. The disease still courses through my veins and invigorates them as it burns when I’m working in my proper medium. There is more to do, more to make, more to write on the wind. More friendships, more beautiful chaos, more joy, more fellowship.

It’s time for me to really focus the beam now, and identify and secure what I need to get into my system. The past is past. It builds us, but it doesn’t hold us. I’ll miss mum and dad until the day I die no matter what battlegrounds we had. Parental love is another thing that never gets out of your system.