Author: albarclay

I’m enjoying existing today. I just got out of the bath. There were civilisations beginning to burgeon in my armpits. I think one of them was on the verge of a nuclear age when I just washed them away with a deluge of water and some of Lou’s excellent rose scented soap.

I sometimes imagine that this planet is merely a strange cell in some incomprehensibly vast being operating on a schedule of time that means nothing to us its so slow. The whole observable universe to us is merely the equivalent of a tiny tiny portion of the interior of this being. We are no more significant than this single cell in it crawling with disease, trying to spread. And maybe the being we are infecting lives on a planet that is itself just an infection and so we go out and out forever and as it gets bigger and bigger time slows down more and more. There are my daydreams… The idea that we are cosmically unimportant, a tiny weird error. It gives me more hope than when I see people think of us as somehow mattering. If we are just a weird mistake then we can largely exist according to the rules we’ve all made up together and try to have a nice time. If we think we are here on purpose because of SKY PERSON that not everyone believes in, then we are justified to behave awfully towards anyone who is wrong about SKY PERSON. Also it allows various iterations of this fleshy mistake to play the rules generationally and position themselves where they can say “I’m an important flesh thing, so I can make other flesh things go to places or do things or have things happen to them. And other flesh things will help me do my desires.”

I’m not making any sense am I? If I’m not making sense to myself I’m surely not making sense to you. It’s cold and I’ve been on my own a lot and then I lay in a bath and soaked and all the heat pushed my brain into thinking too much about nothing and everything.

But yes, I’m enjoying existing. I miss Lou, she’s back in the hard work tech madness. The cats have been good company and Brian and Maddy are back now so I’ll see people. I’m going to do my tax return, the rest of it, tomorrow. So I don’t vanish into my own head again.

Tonight it is already late. I’ve had a lovely day but achieved nothing. Now I’m gonna read my book and listen to the wind and the rain outside. Thank God for this wonderful place to live.

I’m still very much enjoying my Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums listening project but it’s getting slower and slower. It’s an incredibly subjective list, made by multiple people and then likely reordered by editors with an eye to balance and keeping the readership happy, but that only matters if you care about which one is higher than which one. I don’t. It’s a long list of albums that have made it through multiple filters from a wide range of opinionated individuals. And I like an album – I grew up in the nineties. It’s what I got used to. Singles charts never interested me. I wanted the long form, even then, just as now. I’m happier with a five act play, a great big long RPG, a shaggy dog story. Lou took me to Tristan and Isolde and I felt enervated. I like long books.

So I keep listening to these albums multiple times. I’ve only got as far as #11. Purple Rain wasn’t familiar and I still haven’t seen the film. That took a few days to listen out. Then Blood on the Tracks. I used to love Bob Dylan but I’m ashamed to say he annoys me now so I went through pretty quickly into Lauryn Hill’s Miseducation, which I had on CD and which has kept me happy the last couple of days. It’s started to wear on me at last so now I’m seeing how long before I get fed up of Revolver.

Meanwhile off to the South Bank to see an old friend. I’m sure we should be worried about the fact that it is like spring in the daytime and then overnight it rains a whole year’s worth in an hour.

—

A lovely relaxed stroll through the Christmas market and an opportunity to catch up. I’m home again and switching off. Too zoned out for complicated thinking right now. I think I’ll just go to sleep without washing. The cats prefer it when I pong and I’m knackered anyway through inaction. Sunday doing what it is supposed to do.

Park Theatre. It was a long time ago now that I was there, we were there, The Factory. I remember the audience gave us bread one night. I broke it with Odysseus. Katie was with us that night I think. Penelope? Calypso? Maybe both.

There was so much curiosity in that show, so much attack, so much bravery. A little bit marred by availablity issues and fearful playing – “are we really gonna do the scene the same again?” But unlocked a great deal for me in terms of trusting the company, jumping off the cliff and knowing you’ll be okay. We improvised The Odyssey and we told it well enough most nights. We won more than we lost. And many of us grew through it.

I’ve been back a few times since to watch things. Tonight is the first time I came to support a fellow Odyssean. Katie Katie Katie.

Her husband and two kids are there when I arrive. The kids are amazing – they listen and respond in conversation with adults, they hold their own but remain kids. It’s a skill not to get bored and they are only young.

“Your industry is horrible, why do you stay in it,” asks her husband. “She just tells me she’s stuck in it cos she can’t contemplate doing anything else ” “Yep, that’s the extent of it.”

A allegorical show about post partum depression of a Saturday night? Whyever not. Fantastical autobiography. Magic and mundane. “I’m not like that,” her husband assures everyone afterwards.”That’s what the play’s about,” I reassure him.

I am very happy to have seen this and seen her. She marketed it with a load of video diaries on her social media and it’s proof that it works cos I often let these shows go by me, I think time is infinite and suddenly it’s over and I missed it. I held this in my memory long enough to make an arrangement with a friend to go tonight. Then my friend got stuck as all the trains into town from Hitchin are fucked tonight. I ended up sitting on my own, as the family kindly sat at the side. I didn’t want to sit right in her eyeline but I sat where I could see into the doll house that has been taking up space in her home for the last year. “That stupid doll house,” the family call it. I tell them how much space in my life is put aside for costumes I might need and occasionally use. Mummy isn’t the only person eaten by this madness. These shows can be hard to make, hard to do, hard to sell. Personal passion project, I doubt she really knows why she’s doing it other than that she must. And I get that if so.

It’s called Fox. Go on, buy a ticket. Katie wrote it and I know and like Lisa the director. She consulted me one memorable night when she was directing a one woman Edinburgh show about Ayahuasca. Apparently in my friendship group I’m an expert now on cosmic drip. As if anyone could be an expert in something as entropic and mischievous and winding and deep and ancient as grandma.

I’m home again early with the cats. The Park Theatre has pizza ovens and that’s no bad thing. I’m full and warm and happy and I’m gonna go to bed.

Tube back from Mansion House. I remember discovering this station when I was at Guildhall. Realising how much easier it was to get here from Fulham Broadway and walking than to Moorgate or Barbican. No Citymapper app in those days.

My journeys into drama school were full of quiet internal hopes and dreams. “If I walk this side of the column I’ll be lucky,” that sort of thing. “Where do you think of yourself being in twenty years?” That’s a question I got in my recall at Guildhall. I remember it well. “Twenty years? I guess I want to be known in the industry to the extent that occasionally I get asked to be in something at the RSC or The National. I want to be filming small parts and working in theatre. Occasionally a big part on film. Working. That’s where I want to be.” “That’s surprisingly modest and realistic compared to what we normally hear,” they replied. And here I am. Got a few more years before twenty. National Theatre isn’t on my bingo card yet. Jobbing jobbing jobbing.

I have a few friends who use me as an Uber. I really like the arrangement. They need a thing moved and them with it. They know how much an Uber is. They ask me if I’m free. If I am they get a friend instead of an Uber. I can be flexible and help with carrying. They pay the same and get more. I get money and no cut taken. Everybody wins. That’ll be my tomorrow.

Today we did Alice again, and it is unseasonably warm. I’ll be dead before the world dies so I guess I can enjoy the heat. We are in such a pickle though. The people with money can direct the narrative, and Al Gore got it right calling this general warming “Inconvenient”. ManBearPig will come back worse than ever, you can count on it. Meanwhile I’ll be on South Bank in my tights at the end of November.

My make-up arrived in the post so now I’ve got Guyliner on and I feel like Johnny Depp. I’m gonna run a bath and get rid of that. It’s nice for the work, it makes me feel a bit sexier, but make-up generally is a right faff to get off. I’ll end up regretting it.

Marilyn is in Marlborough, right near the mound and the school. I remember sitting on that mound with my mother aged 11, discussing my future. I almost went to school there. As I drive by I see the boys and girls in their uniforms and I wonder about a life that would have come from that start instead. Perhaps a gentler journey through the early years than the one I found.

Marilyn is part of an accordion choir. She’s practical and robust and doesn’t want to keep all the 12 bass accordions. Everyone always upgrades if they stay in the choir.

A 12 bass is all I need for America, I think. I won’t have minor keys though which I’m not sure about. Melancholy Jacques is often talking of how we fall apart, warp, decay, dwindle. It limits which keys I can play in not having the extra two rows of stop. But it fits in the overhead locker of a plane. This one is black. It replaces the one that was stolen from my car but it’s smaller and missing the extra keys. I’m thrilled I got it for under £200, even if I have to drive to Marlborough. I wish it was a like for like replacement but…

Being in Marlborough, I know I’m near Swindon, so I drive there past the Avebury stones, all those megaliths scattered on either side of the road. I have never been that way before, through that vast neolithic henge. This is a strong part of the world. I say that to the old man.

The old man is 100 now. I’ve brought him a card. Michael Beint. Actor. Raconteur. Tristan’s grandfather. I missed him last time I was in this part of the world. Didn’t want to make a habit of it.

A hundred. He is entirely present. Tristan’s mum and sister are there too. It’s good to see them. “I didn’t think you spoke to Tristan anymore,” his mum says. I don’t really, but we don’t ignore each other either. We’re not twelve. He told me where the old man was, so I came to see him.

Lovely to see him too. He remembers and forgets, remembers and forgets, in waves. I’m happy to hear his voice. Sometimes he gives way to wailing, in a conscious way, processing recent grief and the whips and scorns of time. I tell him how I’m the corporate stooge at the moment at The Globe and he’s happy. We often connect over Shakespeare. He drifts into reverie and then, quietly, for himself really, he speaks the words of Sonnet 18, word perfect, without hesitation, propped up with a pillow. “So long as men can breathe and eyes can see, so long lives this and this gives life to thee.” For a moment his eyes are shining. I applaud. He hasn’t been on stage for decades but its in his blood. Mike at The Factory was at The National with him back in the day and has sent me photos. He was a fine looking young man. Some serious cheekbones going on.

I’ve stopped on the way home, at The Red Lion right amongst the Avebury stones to wait out rush hour with a 0.05 Speckled Hen that doesn’t taste like sick. I needed to stop as seeing Michael made me emotional. He just lost his partner. Time is so fucking cruel. I’m happy to know him, to be halfway to his years. He’s not quite the seventh stage of man yet thank God. Got some teeth. Got both eyes. Got good taste. Bless his heart. I’ll be rehearsing during the funeral of his missus sadly.

I can see why he howls howls howls. Grief must be expressed to be known.

Finished up in the warehouse. All went smoothly. I’m now much more confident cutting girders in half. Again I’m not precise on pitching so again I’ll know when the dust settles how it falls out but I’m not gonna finish this process swimming in a pool full of banknotes. I think I’ll pay myself though once I’ve paid everyone else. Learning learning learning.

I’ve just finished my shift at a theatre in London. I was gonna name it but I sometimes forget… There are all sorts of boundaries and licensing issues. Three major departments. Education, Corporate and Performance. Education: We are the most important, protecting legacy, building the next audience, reaching across the world. Performance: We are the most important, doing the shows, doing the real work. Corporate: We are the most important, wining and dining the potential sponsors, building events that bring in good money for the building…

Time was we had to dress in Victorian costumes for events “so nobody could mistake us for the real actors”. Last year I was in Stratford with the daughter of the founding artistic director here. I know and deeply trust one of the early luminaries, who helped create this place. I might not have featured in a column in Important Human Magazine about jazzy actors doing Shakespeare, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a jazzy actor that can do Shakespeare. But … I watched the boundary come into play today. The stilt walker couldn’t get down the stairs so she was the wrong side of the cast iron gate that marks the boundary beyond which the uninitiated must not pass. THAT’S NOT ALLOWED. SHE’S NOT A REAL ACTOR. “Licensing issues”.

I’m largely just a bit nonplussed. Invested people pretend to have just casual conversations with me. ” ‘ello cor blimey I is just being passer by wot is jolly curious, I isn’t investorised in this conversation oh no”

“What’s the show you’re promoting?” I tell her it isn’t a show it’s a party. “Oh it’s just a party?” “Yes, but there is a show, indoors a very good one.” “But you’re just a party, here?” “Yes.”

I’m still pretending I think she’s a member of the public even though someone has tattooed “mystery shopper” on her forehead. I poke her a little. “There IS a theatre here though madam, you should look it up online, it’s very good.” She looks monumentally pissed off for about 0.05 seconds – she hates mansplaining but not enough to blow her cover fully. Damn. “I KNOW,” she tells me, and bites back on saying “Do you know who I am?” I’m disappointed and smiling charmingly. I’m dressed as a rabbit. She walks away.

I’m not in the club. Yet. My best friend is an associate artist. But I’m not in the club. Maybe an audition one day. The current leadership is very adjacent to the people I have been running alongside.

Shortly after I meet the mystery shopper, the bookers are all in a flap and the stilt walker is getting it in the neck and I hear people talking about “licensing” and honestly I just think this sort of thing doesn’t have to be like this, people are so prideful and exclusive. It would be so much better for the whole building if the three departments stopped throwing shit over the wall at each other. Yes, sure, I’m doing improv dressed as a White Rabbit, but some of the gubbins I’ve seen on the mainstage here would make underconfident stilt-Alice look like Eileen Atkins. Quality is not about position. Many heartbreakingly wonderful actors never work in the industry at all after leaving drama school. Anyone that went to one of those places will be able to name a few great people who never launched. Ability counts for something. Luck counts for more. Contacts?

“How do you get these warehouse clearance jobs?” I was asked today. Who I know…

Fair enough.

Everything is about that. Who you know. The more you do in a sphere the more whos you know. I get lots of stuff from that in both spheres. I’ve worked hard not to be a cunt. Does this blog help or hinder? I don’t care anymore I’m just doing it.

Turns out I’m more willing to be bold and pushy and take reputation risks in the clearance frame than the acting frame though and that’s worth looking at. God I love my vocational work though. I think that’s why I’m feeling so enervated right now. Start the day cutting girders in half, end it frolicking on a leyline on the south bank.

Ok. Great. I’m still okay. There was a period this summer just before I crashed off the booze where I began to worry that my stamina was fucked for good. But I’m home now and still feel great and today has been classic double-jobbing.

Up long before dawn, Maddy with me. I threw my frock coat into the car. Picked up John. Drove to Belvedere. And we went through that warehouse like a brace of shakes.

Fucking great big pile of stuff needing fork extensions at the end of the day, and the guys at the warehouse let us borrow some. It’s done, largely. Lots of the wood found new life. The rest of it is going into power. Canice and I will go back tomorrow for the last of it, but I could have finished today to be honest. I had his tipper booked another day, I had to be at The Globe this evening, I didn’t have the headspace or the need to finish today so I didn’t. Past Al had thought about things and made it nicer for Today Al. Today Al was happy about it.

All my tools are still in the warehouse, with some metal that needs cutting and some wood that needs cutting. I left the long things until last. Not much of it to be honest. I’m relying on the guys in the warehouse agreeing with me that I’ve done what was in my remit. If they’re happy, I’ll be happy, my client will be happy, job’s a good’un.

“It must be interesting work,” says one of the lads from the big business next door. “You have to be responsive.”

“Yeah, I love it.” And I do. It’s a happy warehouse. Today Siwan was cutting and shifting – and I got her driving too even with just a provisional. Canice was Caniceing which involves being a handy gobshite jack of all trades. John was the monkey, taking safe risks and tooling what needed it, Mark was my precision driver – chaos everything else, best driver I’ve ever met, and Maddy was my floater. She took some hilarious posed photos in a quiet moment, when I went and got my frock coat out of the car.

The key to building a good team is to try and make yourself redundant. Sure I was there and working as hard as everyone else but by the end of this job, I’ve got a few lads and lasses more confident on forks and tools than they were a week ago. Upskilling is always invaluable. I’ve got a team I know could do a job this scale without me if I was in America, etc. And I’ve got a team I know I could expand on and be confident with a pitch should a job much bigger than this one come up where I have to build hubs and have someone independently run each hub. When I’m doing this shit I internally thank Kester for first trusting me and then John for going with his recommendation. The pair of them have made my life uncommonly richer.

And then as soon as I was off site I washed my hands, changed my filthy warehouse clothes, and showed up outside The Globe dressed as White Rabbit to find out what was required of me tonight. Turns out what it needed tonight was largely me at the head of a cold queue of guests being processed in, literally machine gun audience conversation in character for a full hour, back and forth. Maybe that’s why I’m enervated. I’m having one on those “I’m enjoying this random life I’ve carved” type moments. I have no idea what transpired but it was working out how best to get a moment of joy from a constantly shifting range of people in a queue. Not what I’ve always dreamed of at The Globe, but a continuation of a strong long relationship that has only lasted this long because Ffion and I are good at it.

The same tomorrow but slightly shorter hours. Still, I’m off to bed.

I’m happy with today, it’s what I expected. Barring major snags we will be done on time. I’m back clearing the other half of this warehouse but with much better knowledge than I had. And there’s a much higher proportion of undressed wood and of decent metal. It isn’t gonna cost as much as the last job.

Last van today went out loaded with wood that will be used by two of the lads. Canice has a Dutch Barge and this, in exchange for labour, is gonna make it possible for him to clad the interiors and make it look super sexy. Jethro knows he can use it on his allotment also in exchange for labour. But if you’re spending on the materials you’re much less inclined to do the labour in the first place. Free good wood. I’ve been angry about none of it going anywhere for weeks.

I spent half the day in hi-vis and the other half in a cashmere jumper and chinos, that have become my work wear. If you look closely you’ll see that they’re both fucked – I’ve got better versions of both, jumpers lovingly darned, chinos with mended pockets. These can be sacrificed to work clothes and mean I’m well turned out on site. I’m sorely tempted to bring a frock coat tomorrow and wear it with a hi-vis and hat for some photos for the website. It’ll go with the brand.

Tomorrow I’ll be throwing load after load of good unpainted timber that has barely been screwed. I’ve tried though. I know people could use it but this time it just gets shredded. Fuck it. At least it’s going to a reasonably ethical power plant situation. But first I’ll have to pay to dump it.

I’m knackered though and tomorrow will be long. Keeping his short as all I really wanna do is sleep. Lou is three hours ahead and she only got home two hours ago and it’s too late for me now. I hope they don’t work my lovely lady too hard out there for musical theatreland…

My bed is covered in tools. And with Misty who has chosen to be in here. There are many people in my flat. They are all playing Call of the Cthulu.

I went out to see my friend Dan this afternoon. If there’s anyone in my life who I might have expected would be playing Cthulu in my living room it’s Dan, but he’s not there. We met at the geekiest place you can imagine while Brian’s Cthulu geeks came to mine. Dan and I were in a railway arch full of old arcade machines where people like us who had them the first time round could go and geek out.

Dan designs games now and we are all older so it is clear to us now there are some games designed to take as much money as possible. The model is much the same across the market. Lure in players with an easy start, then start to take it out of them financially when they think they are getting closer to the end. “Continue?” Dan impressed me with his sense memory on Out Run, getting to the third checkpoint on one credit. “It’s about using the gears to slow down.” Most of the light shooter games were broken, but we could still machine gun House of the Dead. Absolute pair of nerds. I’m shameless about it. We were nerds back then, we still are. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Point Blank, Time Pilot…

The house is much more Christmassy suddenly despite the current emergence of the great old ones from Rll’yeh or whatever is going on in the living room. There’s a tree there made of wood, not flesh. I cut the top off to put the star on and it didn’t scream. No tentacles, just baubles.

I love my multitool. Don’t use it much but it is just situationally perfect for doing things that would otherwise be annoying. The tip came off in moments.

And all my tools are on my bed. I had them on the kitchen table but Cthulu happened so I moved them in. I need to pack them all nicely but first I’m charging up all the batteries. Annoyingly I’ve got a mix of DeWalt and Makita now and they need different chargers. Dewalt is better though as the 18 volt batteries charge on the same cradle as the 12 volt ones. I’ve got a corded angle grinder too but access to power points ain’t guaranteed on these jobs. Tomorrow is gonna be a long long day. I think I’ll be asleep in an hour or two max and it’s half five.

Pretty tree. Not too overloaded. But I’ve got my Harrods 2020 baubles on it…

And so it begins. The Christmas Party Season.

I’ve not been part of the offering before, usually I have to prioritise consistent shows but I could feel that sort of thing going south in this current environment. I accepted this job ages in advance. They have to programme it like that. Since then I’ve held it firm. This is a client that has been good to us over the years even if they can be tricky about money and they don’t fucking communicate.

At the costume fitting though, Ffion said “It’s not our job to pick up the costumes and transport them.” Ffion has taught me so much about boundaries, like Lou. I went with it even though it’s against my usual thinking. I kinda knew though that it wasn’t gonna be considered. I started making noise about it this morning because I didn’t want to get there and have no costume. “Do you know the costumes are still at Prangsta?” They got it there. I don’t know how. The external point is it isn’t my job to know or care how. But I do, I will. Always. And we could have made it easier.

Lovely costumes though.

Prangsta are a particular style and they are pricing themselves accordingly. Alice type stuff is absolutely their jam. In their early years they descended on Wilderness Festival with as many ripped and gorgeous young people as you can dream of all descending on the valley on the same night. “Ya, obviouslaar I got these Antlaars from Prangstaas”. They made a generation of middle class festival goers know the name of the costume place, those sexy lads and ladesses. I wanted one of the headdresses. My friends wanted the men wearing them.

My dear friend from today has an audition tomorrow for a pathologist and she’s a real trooper, she’s been through all the things. We met modelling in the nineties and even back then the dynamic was such that for me the client just wanted to make sure I could appear to be subservient and ignore how creepy they were. For her they wanted to put their hands on her and dehumanise her, as was standard practice. I remember the stories back in the day from my female modeling colleagues.

“Actors want to be objectified,” you hear it so so much from people who want to objectify us or pull out our agency or just should know better. “You guys love to be the centre of attention,” is a weapon that I’m so fucking bored of hearing deployed against this fellowship of weird but forward people who play pretend for money and frequently really actively don’t want to be the centre of attention actually, it’s just part of their job.

Anyway.

My friend is cunning, I was so impressed. She’s auditioning for a pathologist. She has no lab coat. She got me to drive her to a butcher and asked if she could borrow a smock for a self tape. The guy went down to the basement and came up with something that will pass for a lab coat, smelling of meat. She will bring it back but first she will send a tape with it. Impressive solving. And she’s a good actor. She’s learnt on the job. She understands it all from the other side from me – she’s going outside in. My best advice to her is to remind her to not “show” things. The less pressure we put on ourselves to demonstrate anything, the more we will find the truth. “DON’T DEMONSTRATE NOTHING,” was a key learn from the irreplaceable Vasili Scorik who mentored many of us at Guildhall.

Meanwhile musically on my journey through great albums, Rumours. I know it backwards anyway, who doesn’t? A hymn to the beauty hidden in addictive patterns and pain. So many great bands eat themselves. Sometimes they make a piece of art in the process. Fleetwood Mac did that.

Now I’m starting Purple Rain. #8 of 500. It is so unfamiliar to me that I’m astonished. We are still in the top ten. I’m gonna have a journey here.