Author: albarclay

Over the last week I’ve had a bunch of edgy builders doing nonspecific work in the flat next to me. That’s the flat that overlooks the massive great big mansion that was built during COVID out of Royal Hospital land for Holly Valance to live in with Ritchie McRich. I couldn’t work out why there were so many people being so cagey. “What are you lads doing?” “Oh we’re making the roof so it can open up for fire safety.” “What are you lads doing?” “Oh we’re repairing the water pipes.” “What are you lads doing?” … Just… anything but what they’re actually doing. Like when I was part of that fractious team shooting a documentary about a famous person. Boring lie > Truth. You don’t want the stinky celeb followers shuffling around if it’s something involving famous people, you don’t want the hordes of “I’m an actor” twats if it’s creative filming. And you don’t want the mad fucker with an assault rifle if it’s a Trump rally. Although in all honesty, the mad fucker with the rifle is attending the Trump rally, and he’s only gonna go home and take the safety off if things don’t go his way.

Building a sniper nest for the secret service? Making the place nice for some republican dignitary? Who knows. Anything but what they told me. Hopefully nothing’ll go down in my block tonight.

Donald Trump jr is about 100 foot north of me as I write, along with many of big republican donors. All sorts of funds are being raised right now. The bottom of Tite Street was laden with paps this evening. I’m glad I didn’t go up on my roof last night as I might have been sniped.

I’m turning in early. Another workshop at arse o’clock and this one is in Hackney. Technically it’s only seven miles away but it would be better if it was in Reading. I was supposed to go to the same place a year ago, but then the teacher got COVID. No such luck this year. I’m going off to talk about careers and passion. Not one I’ve done before. But one that I’ll be decent at, as I’m not interested in compromise when it comes to the way our lives live us.

Bed bed bed bed.

I’ve been a laundry machine. Booked some last minute all encompassing work. I’ve had to cancel loads to make it happen but it’ll be consistent and it’ll definitely keep me honest. I’ve needed something like this. “Oh fuck you’ll be going on about the universe again,” Brian tells me. “It’s hard work to get into the position where people ask you. It’s not the fucking universe.” (It might be though? I’ll go with a little of both.)

So I’ll put myself to bed soon. Likely have some sleepyjuice. Gotta leave at 7 tomorrow. Can’t let down the Catholic youth of hackney. Plus I need the dough.

Roadhouse.

When I was perhaps fourteen, Kelly Lynch was the hottest human being on the planet to me. Bleached blonde hair and apparently she was a doctor, of course, yeah, even if when characters including people adjacent to the human she is suddenly smitten with get beaten up horribly she is only concerned with being the still heart of it all plus oh yes I always look like this hi hi boobs! She looked like Lou but that huge eighties HAIR thing, basically. Phwooar

I just internalised it all back then. The late eighties. I was being encouraged to internalise all sorts of weird messages. I ignored as many as I could but hair and boobs and snoood… Leggings???

‘You need to watch the original Roadhouse,” I told Tom, because the Swayze thing is rare. How many actors do we have who are body first? Fewer by far than we need. Buster obviously. Charlie C. Errol, yeah fine. Then noise. Cary? Marlon?!

Patrick. Keanu… Tom… Tom…

I’m talking about masculine male men selfishly cos I’ve spent more time thinking about the balance with people who look like me than with those who don’t. I’m going to bed now though. And really I’ve got nothing to add but observance. Plus Kelly Lynch. Yep. Just literally being female when I was thirteen.

I’m happy that my mate Bellerby tonight cut through the very obvious storytelling to engage with the original Roadhouse, despite the blatantly obvious mentor character being introduced just to give the hero a death of the mentor arc. We had a fun action movie night.

I’m off to bed having enjoyed watching silly movies.

Apparently someone will pay us all soon for doing important things about the East India Company – perhaps my hardest recent job to be paid for in terms of karma. But… loads of humans have given loads of time. We all obliquely trust we won’t be fucked over. We won’t be, at the end of everything. But the possibility of our need is noticeably down the production people’s list of priorities. I’ve had a few other people on it express concern, having worked a few weeks with nothing back. I’ve never done a job where the payment info hasn’t been properly expressed by now. We should have been paid. By now we should have been fully paid for the work we’ve done so far. There’s definitely money there, and lots of it, and trust is a thing. The show has been funded but the offer going forward to creatives has literally just been ITC minimum. The least legally possible. Having been paid nothing we got a message saying that we might get more shows at literally the least that can legally be scratched out. But HEY ARE YOU FREE??

I’m hoping that integrity will win once the writer makes sense of the word “collaboration” It’s a funded show that also charges for tickets, but… I’m also feeling the shadow of the employment model of the actual East India Company at play here where the workers are the ones deprioritised. PROVE ME WRONG?! I’m sure it is just a short term cashflow issue and they need advice balancing the payments to their creatives. But there are lots of people straight from drama school. Pay them. Don’t make them fight for it. Make it easy. Make them know how their contribution is valuable.

We have had a creative process, but we are not secure regarding our pay. We haven’t been paid anything yet even though we’ve been open to audiences, and I’ve quietly wondered how that can be justified. I trust that we will be paid before this weekend, just as I’m trusting we won’t have to fight for fair pay. There’s a respect that makes calamity of so long life. I’m writing this because I’m beginning to worry.

But actually, in my experience, pretty much universally, someone would have apologized to us by now properly and we would’ve been paid for some of our work. I’m sure it’s just an admin drop. Is it legit to withhold our next performance? Is it dumb for me to write my concern here? I’m doing it. I know that the writer is snowed under but they CAN pay. The writer is the producer. And she HAS TO learn that it doesn’t matter how lovely everything is for her and the networking and the show, she is EMPLOYING people. And they MUST be paid. Particularly young actors. No wonder she can’t get people to commit in advance for her July shows. We need to trust we will be treated with as humans. I didn’t do this job purely out of altruism, and sure as dammit I don’t NEED the work.

So yeah, it’s interesting, but I’m feeling right now like I’m being exploited by people making a show about exploitation. They’ve had some unexpected funding so the optimist in me thinks that maybe they are doubling down and they haven’t paid because they want to give us more than they thought they would to keep us loyal over the three years funding they’ve now got from the Skinners Guild. Another option is that they just don’t think paying actors is important. I reckon it must be that they realise they want to pay us more than this ITC minimum and they haven’t done the maths. I’m waiting to hear how they share the joy about what we should invoice for. Watch this space, I will share it loudly, when they apologise for their slow payment and explain that it is because we get however many times as much as we initially thought we would. That’s why I’m not going to be strident yet about the fact we’ve all done shows and had nowt. Nothing. Over weeks. With new practitioners.

Knowing we will be overpaid in the end makes it just about bearable that we are being made to feel like we are the bottom of the list. I’ll let you know the percentage mark-up we all get! It’s a lovely thing as for many it is their first job, and I’m sure they won’t be surfing into this acting game on a wave of exploitation.

I don’t know what to feel.

I was at the lockup in Camden with four other people. It was noisy. I like to keep it quiet there after the break ins happened as I know it is watched.

What was I thinking?

I loaded my accordion into Bergman. I’m gonna want it at The Willow Globe. Then everyone announced loudly where we were going, just round the corner to the local pub. I went there for half an hour mostly to be polite but also to see my friend a bit. When I came back whoever had broken into the lockup twice had gone there knowing where we would be – (I even described in detail where I was parking) – and had smashed the back window of Bergman in a busy street and hoiked the accordion out. Tinted windows, you couldn’t happen on it by chance. This was targeted.

It’s a £40 Chinese accordion off eBay. He’s not even gonna get enough heroin from it to touch the sides. Great big bulky flight case it’s in too. I’ll never get it back. My power tools and now my accordion. It’s fucked.

I couldn’t stop crying. After getting robbed in Brighton I’m starting to feel really vulnerable.

Glass all over the place. Now there’s a bag on the window.

I have to use my car for work loads in the next few weeks. I use him all the time anyway. This fucker.

I just…

I’m not very eloquent about it today. Early start tomorrow and I’ll be driving to East London for a job. Once again this same single human has brought negativity into my existence.

I’ve emptied Bergie. When they bust the window of the Micra I basically ended up selling it. I hate this. I hate it and them. From wherever it comes, crime like that is just fucked up. And there is no way that wasn’t targeted.

I hope he chokes.

Ahh the memories.

This evening was an AGM for a delightful company that I’m sure I’ll be playing with again before long. Fifty years we’ve been running, taking London actors across the pond. Patrick Stewart was part of the first cohort. The whole game of it came out of him and Murph and an idea of what it might be to tour Shakespeare cheaply with just five actors. Two shows a year for fifty years now, and that’s at minimum. We go out and we blend building the show with teaching. But … Murph understood what he was asking for. He got English actors to come to America and go into academic institutions.  The universities know that they are getting practitioners, not teachers.  I never met Murph. He was an American academic that persuaded some actors at the RSC to come to America and do a suitcase Shakespeare. 50 years later the model’s still working. Patrick should know about that part of his legacy – it has given so much to so many actors.

When I studied English Lit at Reading Uni, my final paper on Shakespeare was highly marked. Marking is anonymous and it was the first paper. Apparently it caused a degree of consternation, as I was best known for a bad attendance record. A high first pretty much ensured my 2:1 after fuck all non practical work for three years. I cared about Shakespeare, and I got it. And my eye to it was practical. I even had it intimated that, should I desire, I could come and be a Shakespeare academic.. My “Drama” paper was my worst mark because the academic eye on such things is nonsense. Shakespeare academics tend to understand that the stuff is to be spoken out loud. And often they are quietly awake to the mystic in a way that virtually all other academics aren’t. But it wasn’t my bag.

This company, called Actors From The London Stage, born from Notre Dame University in South Bend Indiana… I’ve met some incredible practitioners because of them. My fortieth birthday party was in Utah, in Provo at the only restaurant we could find with a wine list. In the morning I drove to what is called Bryce Canyon. An older place than the name Bryce. But America is full of stolen things.

Two tours I’ve had so far. Much Ado back then, as Pedro, and Belch in Twelfth Night. I reckon there’ll be more some time. There’s a joy in it, that comes partly from the fact that it is mostly workshops. You might only do 2 shows a week, but you’ll do 15 workshops with … well with prisoners, squaddies, old folk, youth… students of course… but… All sorts.

Joy. It’s a joyful company. It’s a great way to examine a text you know. And it’s a great way to see things while growing in craft. And teaching is absolutely the best way to learn.

Nice to do an AGM meeting for something and not get bored. Also nice to do such a thing without fecking Zoom. I’m not a fan of meetings generally. Every point of discussion today was interesting and everyone there this afternoon was sparky. I never had that familiar meeting experience of realising you’re just watching someone grandstand.

Fifty years. That’s such a long time to keep such a fire burning. It works though. It must be one of the oldest Shakespeare touring companies in the world. They still keep fresh. They rock. And I’m thrilled to be known by them.

Man, social media is becoming impossible. It was never a nice place, but these algorithms that are supposed to serve us what we want to see? They just literally don’t work for someone curious.

I’m prone to magical thinking. It’s an important frame for the world in my opinion. It’s the modern reflex to replace “My life is shit but I’m going to heaven.” In this post heaven world we can talk about manifesting and all that. But I’ve clearly used too many magical words as the social media algorithms for both TwiXtter and Facebook both keep pushing me towards ridiculous overexcited pattern matching posts. It is getting to the stage where I’m really feeling like it is being pushed on me.

Thankfully my brother is a scientist, and considerably more legit than the “scientists say” type scientists. Add to that the fact that I like to empirically test things, that I don’t take things on trust very often, that I’m always going to question the source. There’s a whole machine of absolute dogshit on social media these days, and there are some people, believe me, who are chugging it like foie gras geese.

We are in a war at the moment, and never forget how the Russians invented propaganda. I’m sure they’re at the heart of all the flat earth stuff etc that I’m getting at the moment. I’ve maybe clicked on a few too many links to people’s heavy handed stuff online about the bullshit alien war that’s not going on. Clicking on it doesn’t mean I give it any weight. I’m just curious to see the voices. Normally they are have a forced superiority, which of course immediately kills their message: “Stupid sheeple can’t see how the moon is actually a pigeon”. Intelligentish people who are still espousing it are likely deliberately going for something ridiculous just to highlight the thing at the heart of it: WE TAKE THINGS FOR GRANTED. We should test things, sure, but there’s not enough time to fucking test gravity just because some mook can make specious argument that it’s buoyancy or magic and that there’s some mysterious “down force” that helps us understand which way is down.

So yes, we likely haven’t tested a lot of the scientific theories we have inherited. We are too involved doing other things. We have lives to live while these people are being paid by the Russian state to get us all excited about nonsense in the hopes they can just tiptoe into Ukraine like they did into Crimea.

Mix this with the fact that we need to be lied to. We have made up society. There are all sorts of social consensuses going on. Cultures throughout history have rewarded some behaviours and squashed others. Now we are all knocking against each other but our rules are different. And the people who have always been best at propaganda are trying to shake us up from within.

Ugh.

Sorry I just hit yet another stupid stupid thing about the moon being full of metal or something, which doesn’t work if you think it’s made of cheese or a projection or whatever…

It’s really fun making stuff up. But there was a terrible AI imagine of a UFO spraying contrails, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. For whatever reason, people are trying to fob off stuff they’ve just made up as real. The person who made it knows it’s fake but as often as not they’ve convinced themselves it’s legit to send a fake picture because it backs up something they think is true.

I reckon about 15% of my good friends are currently conversant with AI. That’ll tip to 60 or 70 in the next year or two, and that’s when suddenly the guy who ate beetles for a dare at school has got the means to create plausible videos. By then there might be some regulation. But I doubt it. Any old idiot can mock up any old rubbish in seconds.

It’s a lovely feeling, to be part of a thing. This little company making a populated walking tour in The City… It feels like we are all singing from the same hymn sheet. I didn’t really understand the history of The East India Company – and certainly not in terms of how it changed the world. I was just doing my job, but my job inevitably involves learning new things. Anu Kumar has written this content, geared to be communicated in crowded public spaces. She has found Lisa, ex governor of St Helena, a woman with really deep history and knowledge. She has assembled a team of practitioners.

For me it really is a fantastic gig in terms of expanding. The thing I am always looking for and always finding is willing creative humans. I like the ones who are into the art in themselves much more than the ones who are into themselves in the art. A walking tour about an old company and the relics of empire – that’s never gonna make people famous, so there are no people working with us whose focus is there. It is a lovely bunch of geeky humans. “I have no idea how we get paid for this,” I said to one of them. “I’m not even really sure how much we’ll get.” “I’m not sure either,” she said. “I just figured I’ll do it when I can and find out when they pay us,” I continued, and she laughed. “Yes, me too.” This is not us being naïve, this is us being good judges of character and being trusting. I’m just a part of a machine here, but it is a lovingly made machine and these are people with integrity. It could well end up being a joyful repeating thing that sews itself into all of our gaps between jobs. I know that if I were to tell them I have major cashflow issues after my card got emptied by the car thief, they would immediately help. But I’m happy for now to let it open.

I’ve met some excellent new friends. Young actors, musicians and makers. I often worry that there’s no more room in my head, as I’ve got so many dear friends I never see and barely talk to. But life is so long and varied. We sometimes just stay in touch by staying the same, and only meet up to ring the changes. This is why weddings and christenings are important, I guess. Times where direction shifts need to be marked by the clan.

Ffion helped me with a sexy last minute self tape this morning before the show. I’m getting better at organising my energy these days. I was able to give full focus to the tape, then set back and focus on the opening show. Then dinner with a generous Tristan, who reminded me that I’ve stood him dinner when he’s been low. What goes around comes around. We both had pie and now I’m home and my only real gripe about today is that it really should be warmer. But then if it was too warm I’d be cooking in my Smythe costume.

We are going to be adding new shows as interest comes in. If you fancy it, the eventbrite is here. Multiple actors sharing all the parts so there’s no guarantee I’ll be there, but that feels respectful of our self employed nature, especially considering we will likely be running when possible for the next three years.

Dress rehearsal this morning. Two times through, which was a relief as I expected just one. More or less as soon as I started speaking the first one the writer started giving me writer’s notes. Writer’s notes aren’t necessarily helpful to at this stage but I’m big and happy enough to understand they come from an excellent place. I’ve seen things come apart when writers give impossible notes to insecure actors. I’m not insecure and the notes were good. There was just a degree of nervous energy involved that might have been better absent at this stage when people need to step into their confidence. “It’s yours now,” Pinter would say when asked about his obtuse stuff by actors. Good on ‘im. Come and do all your anxious stuff when the rest of us aren’t anxious and we will lap it up, but when we are about to show we don’t need left brain.

We have a thing and the thing will be lovely even if people are occasionally wearing the wrong hat. Content is always gonna beat style in the long run and we are gonna nail the content down pat pretty quickly, with minimum rehearsal, and the style is just gonna show. Some brilliant people involved, truly. Recent graduates of some of the best trainings in and out of town, smart creatives assembled just by dint of having existed for long enough making nice things and not being arseholes… and me. And a brilliant and motivated writer. And our “tour guide…”

I met an incredible woman. She is at the heart of this tour. She used to be governor of St Helena, where my great grandfather went into exile with his dad who wrote Napoleon’s biography. I am so curious about that island, with my island obsession. That and Ascension and Tristan de Cunha… There are so many archipelagos, so many strange islands… But God I’m drawn to them, by shadows of my past and those of my ancestors.

It also gives me a very different eye on Napoleon to what I casually hear, to the prevailing narrative. “History is written by the winners”. Oof. What might?

We spoke about the island. He escaped from Elba and made Waterloo so he was sent somewhere truly remote. What a thing. He may or may not have eventually been poisoned anyway. There’s an account of his life in six volumes written by great great great grandpa, and I’ve got an early draft of it. It’s in French or I would see how it correlates with the eventual published text. My French is good but not that good. He was Spanish naturalised to France which made it hard for Kerry to track him down on ancestry… the name changes all the time. De Las Casas, De las cases, delascases… And he was Napoleonic. French, Spanish, Corsican? Who gives a fuck if we are all united. They were trying for a big idea.

Then I had to rush off to Glyndebourne. Merry Widow. An old Fitzrovia Radio Hour contact is associate director and Lou is always gonna be involved somehow up there. What a delightful thing. A proper romp of an opera with incredible costume and energy, so populated, so bright, so merry. I’ve got the can-can in my head.

But it’s bedtime. First show tomorrow and I have to send a tape looking sexy in the morning.

Off we gooooo

And Brian is straight off again to Majorca. I can’t keep up. It seems neither can he.

I’m back home alone and running a bath for an early bed. Dress rehearsal for the East India at 9am and then I’m off to Glyndebourne for a rare and fleeting assignation with Lou ahead of my opening show at noon on Friday back in London. Lou and I are out of sync with work at the moment, as whenever I’m free she’s working and vice versa. Good that we’ve both packed up the jobs I guess, but not the most sociable situation. This is why it’s worth snatching an afternoon to be in nature and culture with one another even if my head will be full of show.

So after doing my dress, I’ll be at the Merry Widow open dress tomorrow thanks to Lou. A good friend is assistant director so I might get to see them too. Then I’m looking forward to a bit of culture and a nice picnic. It’s all very weather dependent at Glyndebourne, but the prognosis is pretty good, so I’ll get to see Lou and enjoy a spot of lovely light operatics in the sunshine. Meantime I’ve just been pulling jobs together wherever I can to fill the gap until late August. I’ve really got myself into a pickle with my expensive fun in Japan, but this is the way of the world with me. If I can keep balancing feast with famine it’s all good. But tonight I’ll be raiding the kitchen cupboards and pulling out more of the things I bought when I felt flush. It’s a decent pattern. I’ve got Cannolli beans in there, jarred ceps and dried morels, foie gras, various cassoulets. It’s not just noodles and rice here. With ingenuity and a few cheap staples I can eat like a king for about a month, and I might well do that in the hope that I can replenish next time I’m in fest mode.

Some chauffeuring, some event work. I still want to try and fit in some sort of a thing that ensures my casked ale goes out to people, and I’ll need to go to Jersey, around a building (if flexible) performance schedule for Lark.

It’s only half eight and I’m gonna just sluice myself and get into clean sheets. No work today so no spend. I’ll be happy just being asleep.

I’m home. It’s not cold. On my left hand side, Brian is triumphantly returned from The Ukraine. On my right, Tom is working into his laptop.

I’ve been listening to our future leaders. It really is frightening that this is where society has taken us. Rishi, a man made of paste, no clue about what actual people smell like. Kier, so used to lies and protection that he has forgotten that questions are to be answered…

Rishi pulled out some nonsense £2000 figure. “You will cost every household £2000”. This is the Tory projected cost of his policies. It’s an open goal. “You have projected this figure based on how you are used to raising money. I know you’ll find it difficult to swallow as a billionaire, but we will not be using the bottom to fund the top.”

I got so bored of Starmer being evasive and nonspecific, with his nasal voice, that I tuned out. He’s (apparently) our guy! Blair was dynamic and sharp. This guy is a blanket. If he gets in, I’m scared he’ll just be nothing and that his nothing will be used for another 50 years of the Tories setting fire to everybody. After all, he was the guy who chased out Corbyn for refusing to sign a document saying “Criticising the actions of the nation of Israel is antisemitism.” Quite rightly Corbyn (socialist sadly) felt that no government should be exempt from criticism. He refused to sign and it was the wedge that allowed labour to get the reds out from under the bed.

But surely leaders have to be able to criticise allies? What happens if an allied country were to initiate some sort of slow genocide while observing due process? We would need to be able to tell that country that human life has value – that their actions are awful… Surely?

I deleted the air raid app as Brian is back from Ukraine. He has learned a lot, and seen what it is like over there for real. A helpful eye, particularly as the Russian propaganda machine is so incredibly evolved. Nobody does misinformation like them. We have an election coming up and I have no idea what the people running the misinformation factories think is the best outcome, but the vast majority of humans on this planet these days are talking potatoes. They’ll take on the flavour of the sauce, and won’t even understand that the sauce was made by someone.

I’m disappointed. I can’t think how else I would feel. Kier is terrified to be something. In America you’ve got the demigorgon lining up for a slug out with a dead fish. How do you mobilise patriotism enough that, like in the Ukraine, you can send these passionate youth to their deaths? It is important to love your country, and have an idea of what that means. But so many people seem to be defining things on what things aren’t supposed to be. Not what they are.

I’m too messyheaded today. bedtime

There’ll be some elections. Nothing will change. And we will all die in the end.

I am absolutely shattered. Heavy unicorn costume, ambient heat, lack of air circulation, dancing.

Today I just rested, drank water and ate tinned fish. Can of mackerel on toast mashed up with some cheese and cream and baked for 8 minutes. Can of sardines with tomatoes on toast. No sense pushing the boat out at the moment. I’m skint, but like the finer things, and I needed to rebuild myself after overspending last night. I’m all about working out how to do the finer things for cheap right now. I booked a gig late August, but I fear there’s a big “tick” by my name in my agent’s office, so the only person looking for work in the gap is gonna be me. A little bit of driving, a little bit of unicorn dancing. And so the world goes round. I’m very good at finding the weird things. The weird things are very good at finding me.

I’ve got two pressurised barrels of good quality booze that need to be tapped in the next month. If anyone has ideas about how to turn that into money I’m listening. One stout and one ipa. I’m tempted to run some sort of pop up summer event. If I get a pressurised dispenser second hand for about £400 then I can likely sell the contents of the kegs to offset the dispenser cost. Then I’ll always have the dispenser and it’s not like I won’t work more shows where it isn’t all used.

The East India Company thing will perfectly fit in to stop me from running out of tinned mackerel. It might not provide steak, but mackerel is protein and makes me happy too.

I’m tired and uninspired today. Likely gonna open a can of horrible free flavoured soda and dump some of it into a glass of Japanese whisky. Then drink it, pass out, and try tomorrow out for size. I might have put on the telly but Tom is staying over. I might have played computer games but I’m bored out of my skull with FF12 and too stubborn to start something new. I might have read a book but I’ve got nothing at the mo. This is one of those interim days. Sleep will bring new motivation, I reckon.

I’m gonna be busy and then I’ll wake up. The guys from the club night loved our energy, but I bet that both of us have been useless today as a result. I certainly have. Haven’t bothered calling her and asking. She wouldn’t answer anyway.