Author: albarclay

A lovely message the other day from an old friend led to lunch and a walk just over the road in Battersea. Dan and Rachel would often ring me up while hatching wonderful mad plans. A great deal of joy was found, and a sense of fellowship and belonging. Misfits match other misfits. We made some odd and glorious things. They moved up to Newcastle, moved back back Newcastle, spent COVID over the river from me and now they’ve gone and bred. I met their little daughter. She’s the same age as Josie, the baby I got to know over Christmas in Jersey. Will at the time told me that babies born in the Chinese year of the rabbit are generally less hassle than any of the other animal year babies. I’m sure there are plenty of little fuckers out there, but his one and today’s one bear the theory out well.

We went for a walk in the park, Dan and I, while Rachel worked. It was just calming and pleasant to be with people I’ve been with under many curious creative circumstances. They fed me their usual tasty vegetarian scran. Oh boy I used to fart buckets the first few days I was on a residency with them, while my gut thanked me for the entirely healthy diet. I did have to ask Dan to remind me on the morning, just as I often inadvertently jettison social engagements from my noggin in the quest to make damn certain I keep functioning career-wise.

That said another part fell away from me this morning, but I’m still very sanguine that things are rising. The industry is back up and running, even if we recently saw the final episode of long running TV proving ground Doctors. There’ll be something soon. Unless I go to Japan which might happen if I’m irresponsible.

The evening brought another trip to the cinema and Dune 2, as strange and lavish as the first. There are a lot of books and it seems that there will be a franchise now, which is excellent considering we need to get people back into the cinemas.

Just over the river first thing in the morning. An early morning return to the old “teaching kids about renewable energy” thing. I was in a little school in Stockwell. The energy company often sends a volunteer. Usually it’s someone hoping they won’t lose their job for being a bit useless, and trying to get some kudos by joining the school’s engagement. Essentially it’s often a potato. I’ve got used to running the workshop with a potato next to me, and trying to minimise the damage they do to the attention of the students.

Today was a treat. Today I had a guy who had been to the actual school, and left fourteen years ago. He recognised some of the teachers. When he went to that school he had just arrived in the country from Afghanistan, and spoke no English whatsoever, but he was good at football. So he made friends on the field, quickly got a part in the football team, learnt the language through the need to make friends and also through excellent teachers giving time after hours. I could tell it was emotional for him to come back. He found at school that he had an aptitude for engineering, and now he’s working at a very high level on some of the biggest pioneering projects in this country. We had things to talk about, with all the work I’ve done in alternative energy, and the understanding I’ve picked up over the years of exposure to large scale interference projects like Extreme-E. But he was totally FROM that school. I live fifteen minutes away, but Chelsea and an old Harrovian? I’m always astonished and flattered when they tick the box saying “The workshop leader was like me.”

This is why I keep doing the schools thing though is for days like today. It’s paid well enough, sure, and sometimes it’s a slog where discipline is bad and nobody believes they have a hope and can’t be persuaded in the time I’ve got. But they do have hope, these curious tricky young ones. I’m sure there’ll be some people already now starting an engineering job from a hard upbringing as a result of one of then bizarre sessions they’ve had with a slightly mad-haired bearded eccentric who doesn’t seem to be wedded to dogma but does seem to care about humanity and the fact we are boiling ourselves out of the picture for greed. They get links and a strong suggestion to follow them. I’m leading a lot of horses to water. They can choose to drink or not. So good to have such a passionate and relatable volunteer.

I finished at 11am. Went round the corner to a pub in Balham and got filmed in the audience for Boatman Town, a poetic rethink of Everyman pioneered by Helen Eastman and Creation Theatre. Gorgeous work. What a lovely day.

“Hi Al, are you on your way to S&H?”

You know when you get the message and you aren’t expecting it? It’s not as bad as a wake-up when you are supposed to be working for money. But…

28 volunteers were on time today for Scene and Heard. 2 people were absent by prior arrangement. 2 people were LATE. One of them was me.

When that text message came in, I was lying on my bed playing Nier : Automata, which is shaping up to be a curious little debate about what classifies as sentience – a thought experiment that we are going to have to start taking seriously before long.

“I’ll be 45 minutes.”

I know the way very well. Sunday is good traffic. Bergman and I made it FAST.

The other late person was Milo. And he’s my scene partner. “You’re made for each other,” Roz joked, and we had to sight read our child playwright’s piece in front of everyone else. We were given a moment in the break to meet him and have a cold read so it wasn’t quite the first time. Just a very harried second.

“My god you guys and that piece were sensational!” says an old friend by text after. She’s being pointedly lovely, but that’s what she’s like. Nevertheless, Milo and I, the naughty late boys, have been given a delightful mischief of a play by our playwright. We can’t name him online. But he’s political and very interesting. I’ve never worked with Milo before, even though we’ve seen and enjoyed each other working. We understood each other immediately though and pinged. We will have so much fun.

All the pieces I saw were “sensational” in their own way. This is a mentoring project and young playwrights from hard backgrounds make stories to be delivered by professional actors. Occasionally very starry people get involved on the sly. It is a wonderful mentoring project and has brought me great joy and focus over the years. Now I’ve got a hard scene to learn, and I’ll be part of a crazy evening in a few weeks, up at Technis. Scene and Heard. There are some actor and crafty friends that I think ought to get involved. You know who you are. Come play.

Oh hi. I forgot this. Still, it’s not crazy late so I’ll still probably be able to remember something. I’m in bed. Blanket is on.

Tomorrow Boy is coming to stay for a bit while Emma heads for the Highlands. Brian is as smitten with cats as I am so he’ll have a happy home, although I strongly suspect he’ll miss Frank, who took the burden of care with the little fluffpot while I was in Aberdeen.

Today there were some breakthroughs at the admin mine. There’s still tons to do but one of the hardest things is done is done is done oh joy. Took a large chunk of day. I have no idea what the weather was like. Haven’t seen the sky.

I did make my first batch of juice with the Champion. My friend in the woods has a beast of a juicer weighing in at seven hundred pounds. For £55 and a drive to Yorkshire, that thing is just as good, and easier to clean. I’ll be working through my ASDA bag of fruit and veg the next few days, and accidentally getting a little healthier while having tasty breakfast drink that isn’t coffee.

I’m back in London. Will be in Camden a bit tomorrow and very tempted to try and go to Dune 2 and get a bit of big screen crazy epic madness. I loved the scale of the first one.

But I’m drifting. Sleep is very close. A relaxing Saturday despite the admin. I might have a tea with a sniff of whisky now I’m awake again to write this. Have a lovely Sunday folks.

There are still people left over from my childhood, people who knew both of my parents. One of them lives near Brighton, the daughter of my dad’s best friend. Her father obsessively collected and raced vintage cars. Dad shared some of them. I once got driven from Yorkshire to Silverstone in their 1920’s racing Bentley. Sadly they all got flogged without my knowledge when he lost track of himself with Alzheimer’s. I had always wanted to try and drive the thing to Sydney – they did that but only got as far as Bombay.

His daughter and I have reconnected recently, largely through the death of an old friend. In contrast to our parents, she has got very involved with Extinction Rebellion. It’s a necessary voice at the moment, so even if I’m not going to be gluing myself to anything in the near future, I wanted to see her piece of street theatre today in Brighton. They call themselves The Crude Oil Mechanicals. Many years ago I did street theatre for kids with an angle about Peak Oil running out, so I was curious to see how they use a performative voice to get their message across.

It’s rough and ready, very much on the nose, but they aren’t theatre makers. I learnt something, which I think was the point. In a crowded shopping centre we stood and watched and learnt that, of course, if we can’t stop the oil industry directly, perhaps we can shame insurance companies into refusing to insure them.

I sometimes feel jaded in these matters. I worry that nobody really wants to change, and certainly they don’t want to lead change. I worry we have gone too far already… With that in mind it is impressive to see her – very much not a performer – as she tries a theatrical message. Outside there were loads of drummers and that was joyful. Protest can take many forms. I’m glad I caught it.

Lou is off to India soon and her parents are up in Birmingham. I’m glad we found space for her to go and see them today.

First we stopped in Bakewell so she could see her cousins. They have a brilliant whisky shop there. We bought a couple of bottles – I got two and Lou got one for her dad. Why not tick over her cousin’s business? It’s a great shop.

Then down to her parents. We couldn’t hang with her parents too long though as we needed to be back in Brighton for her cat. It was good to see them though. Carpe Diem and all that.

The sun fell on two people who had enjoyed a lovely day together, and covered a lot of ground. “One day at this time in summer we’ll be in a car together in a beautiful place and it’ll still be light,” said Lou at ten past seven. “We’ll have to remember this cold dark evening and realise how lucky we are,” I smiled back as the M25 rattled past underneath us. It was about to get a lot colder and darker.

It started raining. Visibility dropped. Google maps sent us up a funny slip road because of debris reports. About five minutes later we were both being absolute arseholes to each other for no discernable reason, and since then, for hours now, we haven’t been able to get the atmosphere back to anything approaching peaceable and it’s bedtime. Apparently now I have to have a bath. It’ll probably help to scrub some of the negativity off, frankly, but the immersion takes an hour to heat the water. I very nearly just went back to London while I still had the energy, and I wish I had, really, because the fact I didn’t make good on that instinct means I’m “being dramatic” (I’m an actor you see) rather than just wanting to get out of a toxic atmosphere and being too tired to drive two hours. I keep on writing/deleting about details but honestly it’s pointless so I’m gonna splash warm water on myself and then turn in and see if we can sleep next to each other with all this bad adrenaline. I think Tessy might be in my place too. I’m not sure I’d fit in her little heated circle so I might have to turf her out.

I’ve not spent much time in Hebden Bridge. “It’s great up there,” says Tom. “We go on day trips from York all the time.”

Like Austin in Texas – “Keep Austin Weird” – Hebden Bridge doesn’t quite fit in with surrounding Yorkshire. We stopped on the high street and had two different varieties of vegetable soup. I had a Chai Latte. This is West Yorkshire. You’re supposed to eat sheep and have tea.

I bought that juicer off eBay, and wrote about it at the time. It’s a Champion juicer but that’s the brand, not a Yorkshire expression of quality. It belonged to Lisa. She lives in Hebden Bridge and makes automata. Beautiful intricate hand operated animated woodwork. She takes commissions. We met her lovely cat when we came to pick the juicer up, and felt momentarily welcome in her space. I do love God’s Own County. Spent so much time here over the years. With all the Harrogate / Ripley time, it is a happy place for me.

Apparently you need the pith to properly get the nutrition from your fruit. Thus saith a podcast. Likely it is right, but I’m not gonna be eating the fruit at all if I’m not mungeing it, so this’ll have to do. There’s room in the kitchen and it fits my demeanour to get all my fruit all at once in liquid form. I am gonna be the fruitmunge king for about a week until I get bored. You will benefit if you come stay.

Another thing in Hebden is Sylvia Plath’s grave. We found it as dusk fell. A touch of rain, a spot of wind and here she was.

Even amidst fierce flames, The golden lotus can be planted. Well attended with coins and flowers, respectful and devoted mementoes. We spent a chilly moment. I like the lotus imagery. NMHRK.

No time though. We loaded the juicer into the back of Bergman and drove through the peaks down The Snake. We are overnighting at The Maynard in Grindleford. Great big comfortable rooms named after cricketers who stayed here over the years when on tour. Most famously Don Bradman and his Aussies. They were here in ’38. They’ve named a suite after him. Our room is upstairs and named after Sid Pegler. He was a South African right arm medium leg cutter with a break and a fast ball when he needed to mix it up. His South African career was damaged after he bowled a match for Transvaal. He toured England in 1912 as a player and again in 1924. Got 7 for 65 at Lords on 11th June 1912 but didn’t have the support to get the win. Got 35 not out a few weeks later at Headingley but his team was rolled for 147. Clearly knew which end of the bat to hold when he had to.

He was manager for a 1951 test tour to England. They lost 3-1 (1). He was in the game.

This place is an hour away from Old Trafford, an hour from Trent Bridge and an hour from Headingley. Maybe he stayed here. Who knows? Who cares? A strange choice for a room name but I like diving into random things like that so I’m glad they did it. Somewhere in the afterlife the spirit of Pegler is currently going “They are thinking of me!” Godspeed through purgatory, Peggles you old dog.

I’m off to sleep I think. What a lovely stopping place. I had ravioli and 250ml of a 2015 Rioja Reserva. Then I had a bath. Can’t be bad.

I’m outside Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. Horrid places, hospitals. I’m in A&E with my neighbour. She’s finally gone in after falling four weeks ago. Tough old boot, she’s got multiple fractures and her shoulder has been dislocated for a month. That’s gonna hurt. I have a feeling that as I write some burly fellow is about to CRONCH the whole damn thing back into the socket.

An old guy with a huge beard is being very noisily sick into a cardboard bucket. A baby is howling on constant repeat with all that it has. Some people hobble, some are masked. Some have company. Most are alone. There’s a surprising amount of French being spoken in here. Chelsea and Westminster. Near the Lycee.

The doctors are on strike, and still we have been here just two and a half hours and she’s had triage, an x-ray, a discussion of the results and now she’s with “another doctor”. She won’t pay a penny. Considering we are in the middle of another one of these necessary strikes, that’s so impressive.

The nurses are evidently knackered and running on fumes. People are wired. But there’s so much humanity here. Bloody eyes and broken bones and coughs and puke and neurosis and pain. I want food. I’m hoping this is it for the day and I can drive her home. Maybe we will go via lunch…

—

Damn. That’s a brilliant young doctor. 28. He’s sent her for a CT scan. She’s got loads of fractures all round the upper arm that have half healed badly. He needs to work out if it’s worth getting her into a sling now. She’s “too old” for them to operate, and he dismissed the idea of rebreaking it all. After the scan, he said we might as well get some lunch rather than wait for immediate results. Reading between the lines I think that means we are gonna be here for hours yet. Still, CT scan coming up. It’s all very clean here in the scan waiting room, and nobody is screaming or puking. Everyone is just in pain. We’ve only been here 3 hours so far.

—

I went for lunch. It was heavily implied that we would have time to do so while waiting for CT scan result so I figured there was time. Now we are waiting for a nurse to put the sling on. 4.5 hours.

—

Just 5 hours. A nurse for triage. An x-ray. A doctor to explain it. A CT scan. A doctor to further explain it and allay fears. A nurse to fit a sling and explain it. Plus the sling of course. An appointment at the fracture clinic this Sunday. I was bored out my tree but… in the US this would be pricey. God damn those fucking plastic idiots trying to mirror US healthcare for their own nasty profit. Thank the lord that for now, because of the hearts that are still in it, the NHS machine is limping towards the next election. Just. Bless them in their strike action, without which this would have been much quicker. I really really hope their desperation will cause even these venal humans to make some changes. Honestly, I’ve never felt more like we need a revolution. Problem with revolution is that it all just starts again immediately with different faces.

I had no idea when I was accepted that my actor training would be so good. I just wanted to go to a drama school. I auditioned for a few, was accepted by most, probably because I was a little older.

My bridges at RADA had been burnt because I first went there secretly aged 16 and told them I’d be willing to leave Harrow. “What would your parents think of that?” “Fuck my parents.” But … that’s the problem with RADA. Royal. They can’t run interference. “How will you pay for it if you defy your parents?” So I went to Guildhall years later. And I paid for it more or less exactly with what I got from dad.

Chattie Salaman was our teacher in the first year, using “the magic space.” She challenged us. She had absolutely no interest in our bollocks. She was 80. She helped us understand how all the things we do send messages. She was stoic and brilliant and honest. Her son Joseph Blatchley directed me a few times through my training and was very much a chip off the old block. Chattie was involved with people who cared deeply about actor training. She was a practitioner, but she absolutely knew how to transfer energy. She did it until she died.

My three years at Guildhall marked a number of endings. My first year was the last Chattie year. She fired energy to us and then others tried to carry the baton. Later we had Vasilli Skorik. Again we were the last. Was he shot by Russian mafia? Who knows, but he taught me about rigour. Peter Clough was a huge influence, but he suddenly vanished too. I was finished, so didn’t mind that his place was taken by predatory Christian, even if perhaps I could have fucking stopped the rot but how? A real shame, to have someone so venal and cock-driven coming into the mix.

Nothing stays the same. I have not been following the old place. But I know it is all different now. Priapic Christian catalysed some necessary changes around identity.

I’m home. On my left a major theatre producer. On my right a major theatre director. None of us are running any sort of racket with each other, unlike filthy Christian. Our attention is only worth what our attention is worth.

I’m thinking about all this because I made a pepper sauce this evening. Joseph Blatchley, the son of Chattie, encouraged me to learn how to cook sauces because my third year character was a saucier. I went deep. As you know I do. Thanks to him, we had a fine meal. I texted him to thank him. He’s one of those who has affected thousands but doesn’t want to accept his own power. I love him to bits, and I’m sure it’s partly cos I knew his mother. There are so few of my friends left who knew either of my parents.

The night is called L’Italia s’è Festa. It’s in Cannon Street at The Steel Yard. DJs always have crazy ideas. One of them once had me dancing as a vampire in a shower of blood wearing a string vest. I still exist in some people’s imaginations as the guy who says “yes” to weird stuff.

Hopefully this night will be in my autobiography as the thing I was doing just before the call came.

Dancing Unicorns. That’s the entirety of the idea. Two eight foot tall plastic inflatable unicorn suits. Each has a fan to keep it inflated. They are hotter than the fires of hell.

“Who do I know who will do this with me for three hours on a Sunday night,” Siwan asked herself. Then my phone rang.

I’ve got the pink one. Right now I’m on a break. I haven’t got a change of clothes and I’m made out of water. I had to take the whole thing off. It’s soaking. I’m halfway through.

—

Promoters etc are all lovely and understand the need for regular breaks which is a relief. It’s all nineties Italian pop, and everyone but the unicorns know all the tracks. It’s quite strange bopping along to the childhood tunes of another world. People generally seem pleased to see us, but it’s very hard to see anything through the little window we have particularly since it tends to steam up almost immediately. I spend most of the time not even trying to look at things. Just planting and bouncing up and down. The arms are heavy. It’s a workout.

—

And relax. Gonna lie in tomorrow. That was knackering. I used to do party starting in drag in a club in Tower Bridge back in my twenties and I could go all night. By the time ten came I knew I wasn’t gonna get changed and go dancing. Straight home and into bed. Magic unicorn has used his daily magic supply up. Recharge time.