Author: albarclay

Half four I woke up. Now the show is done I’m habitually falling asleep around the beginning of Act 2 and waking up at ungodly hours, although this hotel room at dawn was enough to make me cancel my cancellation. I watched the sun come up after hours of restlessness. I went down to St Aubin. Tide was high and lapping over the wall.

I generally hate winter, but Jersey is excellent when it comes to providing light. This was an underwhelming sunrise but one of the last ones I’ll get here. It was depressingly late as well. At least we are pastv Solstice.

Costa was already open. Nothing else. Back in the day there were no chains in Jersey. I bought a guilty vanilla latte and in so doing knowingly contributed to the homogenisation of everything. I am evil.

Later I walked with friends and donated my uncle Peter’s 1960’s metal plane collection to my friend’s son. I’ve been wondering what to do with it. Energy and shift, as you know, are important to me. I don’t like to be the endpoint for things – I like to move energy. And family felt like the right place to put that particular thing.

We went across the west. I saw loads of people I’d Scrooged for. They wouldn’t have clocked me in mufti. Those that did just gave that familiar look you give a neighbour and then realised when they got home who that guy was.

Och though. I like it here. Despite the smallness. This is a good island.

I’m glad the weather gave me an extra day. Ferry tomorrow looks like it’s going ahead though. I’m gonna be thrown around like a leaf but it’ll get there. I’m holding off booking accommodation in Portsmouth, as I’m not confident we will leave. But likely I’ll be in some awful hotel tomorrow evening.

For now, maybe a quick whisky nightcap before the bar goes and then these lovely sheets for a second night. Yes this hotel is God’s Waiting Room. But it is comfy.

Since the boat was cancelled, I’ve checked myself into a posh hotel. It’s above St Aubin and I’ve always been curious about it. It commands a great view.

The place purports to have a good restaurant, and you know me and good restaurants.

I can’t tell you for sure if it’s a good restaurant or not. The tasting menu was unavailable. They brought me the wrong starter and then told me they couldn’t fix it. My insurance company (hopefully) is covering most of the cost of the room here but it’s expensive being here and when you’re binning this much per night you might expect more than a sea view. This is an eighties hotel in feel, like many in Jersey.

Credit where credit is due, the venison was extremely good. Chef has run out of loads of things. Everything is expensive, and nobody is under 60. I’m starting to realise that I’m bringing the average age down by about twenty years. Off to get a drink.

—

Oh dear. I called the barman “darling” instinctively. It was a mistake. I immediately backpedaled. He couldn’t let it go. “Did you just call me darling?” Asked with hostility, not curiosity. Rather than “I call everyone darling,” I tried to double down: “You could be my darling if you want?” He spat almost as if I had fed him poison. “No. No thank you.” An enemy by mistake.

Now I’m in the bar but they don’t like me. They are massively on my case. They told me I was sitting incorrectly because part of my trousers was in touch with the corner of a chair. As anyone who knows me would know, I don’t put my boots on soft furnishings. I was dragged up well. But I did have my calf on a corner. Bringing the tone down.

I’m sad I booked two nights here at that price. I’m in an old folks home.

It’s well placed. But … everything here is dated and evidently they want to stay bound in leather. This can’t be fixed with a refurb. This problem goes deep. Maybe when it dies, artists will find a way to make use of the building. And call each other darling.

Once I’ve written this I’m gonna see if I can get my second night refunded. It is rare that I don’t feel comfortable in my clothes, but I went and changed into a 3 piece suit so I wouldn’t feel quite so fringe. This is the place you book for your grandma.

—

The manager tells me he will refund the room for tomorrow but I can’t book anywhere else until I’m certain I’m not paying for here as it isn’t cheap. I’ll wait and see how that all pans out. Shame.

He’s a good manager. The location is great… Just Crab People Crab People Crab People Crab People

This tiny island.

I’m off to sleep here tonight now anyway. Comfy sheets, comfy room. As Lou would correctly observe, it only went wrong when I had a drink. Easy to prevent.

“You’re Ebenezer Scrooge!”

“Oh. Goodness. Yes, thank you. I hope you enjoyed it. I’m sorry I didn’t recognise you immediately, but I meet so many people over the show. Where were you sitting?”

“I didn’t see it. I just recognise you from the adverts.” This exchange has happened to me much more than meeting people who actually saw the show. It’s weird. They’re still invested in the conversation with me somehow, but they don’t know what they are invested in. The advert reached them, and despite the universally positive notices, they still decided to say “no” to it. And still they talk to me like you talk to a person you’ve seen on that tellybox.

This is a fine iteration of the show and people are royally entertained. Nathan and SD Catering are providing excellent food. We easily sold this out one year at £120 a ticket in London, a proper show and a proper meal. Jersey is small but the audience is certainly here. They were just… being weird and hiding. It’s a Jersey thing.

With tickets tiered from £70 – £100, we rarely flogged the top tier in Jersey even though everyone has had my bearded dancing face shoved into their eyes every day. Perhaps because. We even had some empty seats on the final night which is rare. I’m very very surprised, frankly. I said to Adam, I need to work on my profile. This is why they get Joey Cantact from the TV Talent Show to be Prince Charming, or why the guy playing the dame is credited on the poster for having been on El Dorado.

But … financially it’s not on me and bless mister laptopJack in his new head. I didn’t need breakfast on my room. I would’ve eaten it about twice. My head need not be on production. I can just prance, and I’m officially finished now. Yeah I’ll do some helpful driving of things and maybe poke some things in the get out, but my work here is officially done.

My ferry to France was cancelled though. High winds. All my plans got fucked. Thankfully it was all cancellable and I think I can get the two extra nights in Jersey on my travel insurance. I’m surprised I haven’t had an official powwow with production about it as I could tell them it is their responsibility, but production is either busy or it’s Jack. I’m stuck here two more nights. I’m self sufficient and not prone to panic so it’s fine.

I’ve booked a nicer hotel for my last two nights. Paid extra for a sea view. Gonna make an advantage of being stuck here. I still can’t cook in it, but at least it isn’t the fucking Premier Inn, where even though I like a lot of the staff, they are paid in string so they can’t be expected to care, the sheets are made out of sandpaper, and people let themselves into your room while you’re sleeping.

The picture is my Christmas Present. Every day I’ve been haunted by Death. A timely protection, and thoughtful.

A little rented flat in Greve d’Azette.

Will got a flat cos he’s a new dad. There are stage managers to put up, and yeah maybe it was cost effective to put us all in the Premier Inn. I’m here now, in the town where I was born, where I want to move back… In a Premier Inn.

Christmas was at Will’s though. He had an oven. I wish it had sold better. The show was brilliant. But all that aside, today we made Christmas.

Over in London, Brian was doing however many for the annual orphans. Here in Jersey it was me, Will and Ciara, Aylar and Brad. A new community. I still blew loads on unnecessary fripperies.

Christmassy Christmas.

I am so proud to have brought professional work to this island. It needs it. But they don’t expect it. I imagine it would be even worse in The Isle of Man. There’s fuck all happening in Jersey. But the theatre things that have happened over the years have been enthusiastic amdram for a tenner a pop. “Jersey really needs this quality of thing,” said literally everyone. That’s all very well and true, but if they rehash an opinion piece from their smaller paper as an extremely late review in their main paper… I rarely get on my high horse, but this is not about my or Will’s performance: The producers made a tight and complete piece of theatre. Next year it might sell out… This year everyone had a ball. But we were totally fucked over by the local paper and by the admins of the local groups. Small town mentality, sadly. I had to learn it hard. Next year, if it is practical, we need to build in opportunities for locals. It is nice that I want to move back. But I’m not a local. And Jersey is a boat in the rain, full of people who think they are the captain.

Hopefully I will sail on the 27th. Who knows where I’m going.

I’m backstage. That fucking playlist is going round and round. The audience only have to hear it a few times while they wait. We have grown to loathe it. Jolly Christmas tunes played by cartoon pirates. I only enjoy the Coventry Carol, and that is because neither of us know the words so we improvise protomedieval devout bullshit while we put our socks on.

Blue light and I’m in my nightie and dressing gown with longjohns and slippers. I’m clutching a fake invitation from my enthusiastic nephew Fred, and five coins. Only one of them has Victoria’s head on it. The rest are later. Brad grabs them at random and as part of our preshow we guess how many monarchs he has grabbed. We have enough Victorias for it to always be them, but it’s nice guessing. I’ll be putting them into a pot in a few minutes. I’ll be ripping up the letter shortly after. Last time for me to go round the old redemptive arc for another year. It always pings on Christmas eve, as that’s when the thing is set.

I’m tired. Very tired. My voice has taken a pounding but it is still there and recovers very quickly. I’ll be able to relax running into New Year.

…

That’s the announcement. Dante our local boy making his “short and quick” announcement. Gonna have to get into place soon. Preshow: Hug Will, then stand by Brad and wait for clearance. Then over to Will, one more sweaty hug. Then page a curtain for him. Then over the other side and peek through to see who is chosen to be Jeff the Pervert Strangler this evening. Wouldn’t want to double-cast him as Ponsonby etc. Then I get to listen to the house call and response with Will and sense how drunk / shy they might or might not be. Wait for the first big laugh. Kick of adrenaline. “Keep Christmas in your way nephew and let me keep it in mine,” and then I’m on. I then sit in a chair for a while and listen to Will and the audience while my pen moves over the page. I write the most random things. Often numbers. Then the audience and Will all lift the veil and I’m in Scroogehead until the end of the night. Lots of humbuggery, some dancing, a touch of accordion and a smattering of terror. Meeting lots of people. Social awkwardness. Ebenezer. All in a good night’s work.

Aylar coming on board has raised the game. Ahh the second announcement.

Here we GO.

—

What a lovely team. We came. We saw. The audience wasn’t quite what we hoped for. Would’ve been happier with more. But we know it can sustain a big house. Bigger than we thought.

I’m so happy I’m still on board. I’ve got very very good at this particular game now. And it is a lovely game, being played by a lovely team.

At the end of the show tonight Adam the producer said a few words of thanks and then actors and audience all linked hands and sang together and it was totally magical. The show has always been about bringing people together. I love it. I love it. I love it. I’m absolutely shattered.

Tomorrow Christmas. I won’t be part of the orphans maelstrom this year though. I’ll just be with new friends, and we will all be fucked. I have no doubt I will still turn into a blini machine, and be laying out cheeses and washing up plates etc, as Christmas is joyful work. I’ll collapse thereafter.

Christmas Eve tomorrow.

This morning I had an interview on BBC Radio Guernsey. I remember having tables at The Auberge that had come over to see the show two years ago. If there’s fuck all going on in Jersey, I get the sense you can double it for Guernsey. And Alderney? Beautiful island, but just getting on with it. I’m curious to go visit. What’s going on there?

The DJ asked me about the lack of a fourth wall in our show. He called it “audience participation”. It was one of those questions along the lines of “If you invite chaos, how do you deal with it when it arrives?” I told him we build whatever the fuck we get into the show. I think I inadvertently used the word “wacky” while trying to keep it light. insha’Allah.

This evening we had a table that had clearly been drinking since morning, sitting at the front in a room of about 200 people. When Scrooge started doing basic maths, they just started shouting “seven” to every question. Initially I incorporated it by trying to give status to a question to which the answer was actually seven. That worked to a limited degree, but then the word “seven” started to pollinate from table to table. Scrooge thus became obsessed with the number seven, judiciously knowing that it had become a word that would carry an audience response. We layered it in and the show, which was filmed, became a seven-cake of a show because it had to. Future casts might get sent the YouTube. “This is how it works”. Good luck to them. “What’s with seven,” they will ask.

Will and I invite chaos because we both think we are clever enough to deal with it. Fire and Wood Tigers, we have found a quick and powerful partnership. We won tonight. We win every night.

The “seven” table were slow to leave after the show and the second slowest table members to leave pointed at them, still ensconced as they were leaving: “Oh so they were plants all along! The seven thing was scripted and now they get a lockin?” “No. No it really wasn’t. You try shifting them.”

Joy. Incorporation. I had to work very hard to shut them down when Yet to Come shows up, but … we won.

I’m knackered. Two shows tomorrow and then I’ll miss it. Zzzz

It’s coming to an end now, this little period in Jersey. Just a month. When I’m setting snooze alarms on my phone in the morning, fifteen minutes feels like a long time. With that in mind, a month is endless. And yes, it has been unfamiliar enough that the time has not been filtered away through experience. The show exists outside of standard measurements, as it always does. But the noise of life around it? That has not rushed by.

Showtime is a strange time extension. I’m there forever and it is gone in a moment. My first action of the show is to page a curtain for Will. Then he gets the measure of the audience and I get to listen and key in. By the time I’m in and humbugging I already know what to expect from them. I’ve been watching them with him just as I did with Jack. Then I flicker in and out of reality, and time goes odd. I’ll be deep in text one moment, and then I’ll be flying with an audience gift the next. I’m in wide angle showhead then, listening for random, focus outside myself, looking and listening and knowing that the text is so deeply embedded it comes when correct. I’ll then be solid in that showhead until I turn to look at Estelle le Brun, who had no idea two years ago that she would still be in the show. She’s Belle, Scrooge’s ex, projected in the mirror, second take, lines not quite right. Scrooge fucked it up by being too venal and she’s taking it out of him. I often find myself thinking “thank fuck. I’m out of the woods” because the lonely childhood and the everyone dying bit are the only bits that cost me. Once Past is done I can stop channeling and start playing, but Past is hard work as it is quiet and painful, and there are hundreds of potential hooligans out there necking wine and up for the craic.

Only a few days till Christmas. I had a lovely breakfast today with the people who bought my grandparent’s house. Granville. I was always sad it was sold as I probably would have moved here if it hadn’t been, but mum and Peter wanted spending money and I was but a teenager. I was always told I’d get Peter’s place when he passed, but he changed his mind once mum died I guess. So I’m in the Premier Inn.

Lovely to see the Blackies. To feel some sort of continuity. There is community in this island and family if I go looking. I’m just so busy with this show. BBC Radio Jersey live and online at 10:15am tomorrow. I’ll likely blither. zzzz

This afternoon, one babyfather passed the baby across the table to another babyfather. As the exchange was made, a large drool plonked in the middle of the table. I noticed it. They noticed it. I wanted to find a cloth to wipe it. They didn’t mind about the table drool. I couldn’t reach it without making it obvious it was big in my mind. After a few minutes it lost significance. I’ve seen the day to day through dear friends. The horrors of missed poo. I’ve cleaned that baby bouncer. I’m shit at babies but I’m trying. Boo and I learnt a lot together while we were plotting world domination.

Jo, at nearly 5 months, is very happy to eject milk orally at an alarming rate. There will usually be a cloth ready for this eventuality. He is happy to sick milk that he was only just shouting about wanting. He takes more than he needs and then vomits the excess. Aren’t we all like that?

This is a human. Before most of the senses are fully developed, taking more than he needs because he can have it and then sicking half of it out – he’s learnt society. Breastmilk isn’t oil though. His mummy has secondnamed him for one of the great giants of Ireland, and he’s huge for his age apparently. But quiet. Calm and quiet. They always say that the second one is the bastard, and I’m sure mum would agree. She loved me so deeply. But I know I was a tricky fucker for her.

I’m happy to have made friends with this baby creature, and with his parents.

“You two have a really lovely relationship on stage,” I’ve been told loads. And we do. Wild haired bearded myth geeks. “Is your Marley John Henry?” This is a frequent question. “No. But they are friends.”

Today I went round Gorey Castle with Will, John Henry, Ciara and multiple childrens. Three bearded myth geeks in one place was almost too much. JH is The Story Beast, and if you look him up he will be wearing what he wore to be with us. A Jersey expert, a myth lover, and he grew up in the same neolithically complex parish as me, a decade later. The energies from the furrows of the silleries, rippling out across the whole island like the equinoctial light of houge bie. This island carries so much light and weight. If you are active you likely can avoid the factions that make everything so tiny. I’m honestly thinking of coming back home. If I had 13.5 million I’d buy my old home. The wonder we could make possible at Les Silleries. Likely I’ll have to make do with something less fancy though.

I’m a little homesick for my London home now. I’m fed up of living in a hotel. They are lovely if a little unwilling here in The Purple Palace. Nobody is here vocationally but different people manifest different priorities in the business of being good at their jobs. I like the guys but you’ll often see a frown flicker over their countenance when you come with a question. I shouldn’t be so fucking sensitive all the time but hi.

I think I’m gonna strike South when I’m done here. St Malo ferry, and then down. I’m gonna head to the riviera for New Year. I might get a shot at seeing family and old friends on the way but I will spend my NYE alone with ritual, where it’s a little bit warmer.

Then it’ll be back up fast so I can get some Lou-time before I’m back into the London mix.

This Jersey Carol has been brilliant. If the houses had been better I would suspect it was the start of an institution. There’s been so many people with their various energies. When I think of the mystic grounding this ancient land gave me growing up, I’m very happy to walk there streets again, to look at the cliffs, to try and imagine what it was for the lost ones that I knew so well. For mum it was home, for dad it was prison. For me it is neither. It’s an old ground. I can see it for the beauty and the warmth just as I can see how the walls would start to close in. If I had property here still I could think about it more practically. I don’t. It is beyond my reach, a memory, nostalgia. Such things are pleasant while you are bathing in them but they quickly get stale if you’re looking to stay present.

I’ll have time to properly cover this island over Christmas. I’ll be able to wash down the gravestones and touch up the writing.

Bed now, and tomorrow I’m meeting a friend of Will’s who grew up very close to me and is just as full of mystic story as I can be. I’m looking forward to meeting him. I’m still playing with the idea of coming home.

Five minutes from the house I grew up in, La Hougue Bie.

6000 years old. One of the oldest man made sites in the world. It responds to the equinox.

Vast stones, hauled from across the far side of the island, arranged as a tomb in cruciate shape. You have to crawl to enter and thus do correct obeisance to whatever was at the heart. The two sides of the cross were tombs. The top of the cross was where the thing of power lay.

The entrance takes the first ray of equinox sun straight in to the heart of the passage. Dawn light hits the thing of power. As the sun rises, the light retreats down the passage back out, pulling whatever power out and into the world, for everyone.

They poured rubble on top in a vast mound and then banked and earthed it well enough that it has stood and stood. The mound would have been carefully judged in terms of height. Likely the top of it would have responded to equinox or perhaps a solstice sunset – perhaps a sacrificial or dedicational place. They plonked a church on it just like they did at Glastonbury Tor, round about the 12th Century. With that there it is hard to fathom the intention from the top, plus there are trees now which have inevitably muddied things even further as keepers who understood the needs would have been pruning them back if they blocked anything. I’d have to stand there on equinox sunset to even start to try and make sense of why it was built to that height, but with the church in the way it’s hard to make sense of the purpose. As Will observed, nothing this considered back then was done at random. The top is as significant as the bottom, but there’s a church that would be thought of as old if it wasn’t basically a child by comparison to the thing it is stealing from. Apparently someone used to “pretend to do miracles in it. I wonder though. That place is full of power. Stuff so old we can barely contain it. Weight and depth. Did he really pretend?

We have this grave leading to the omphalos and *whatever* was housed there for the light to take back into the world as it retreated. The bodies were many and temporary, and were flayed and exposed before going in, and weren’t lain there forever. This was a waypoint. They didn’t want the stink, but the notion of the energy of all the ones who died since the last equinox being pulled out and back into circulation by the equinoctial dawn? I’ll take that as an option. Dry out the dead, bring them to the tomb. At equinox the dawnlight will pull their spirits back leaving nothing but an empty vessel which we can then move on, and grief is dealt with by the hope of that dawn.

It’s so fucking ancient. It is astonishing. And the last two times I was in Jersey it was gated off. I assumed for protecting the monument, but disappointingly it might have been for fucking COVID. Can you imagine? For fuck’s sake… What bollocks.

We got in. We crawled to the centre. Will and Ciara and their little baby.

The air moves in there. Right in the centre there’s a peaceful spider who wouldn’t be there if things weren’t blown in. Maybe we were caught by a similar cosmic spider that needed us to bring it back out into it world. The Gods of this place? We can only speculate what men called them, what they believed them to be. We will never lose the names people gave their gods when writing was better known and preserved. But here we just see how people responded to the sun and the moon. The names we give these powers are always made by men, so in many ways they are irrelevant. Hubris to think we’ve got the right name. The powers are undeniable. The names? I remember doing daimoku with someone and there are prayers at the end. One is for the ancient ones. One is for those more recent who carried the torch. I was hauled out for saying “and now we remember the ones long past”. “No, it says XYZ”. I wasn’t gonna fight mid chant, but the purpose of those prayers is obvious, and it is ancient, modern. If we have to all remember the same list of people every time then we aren’t in a lay Buddhist society, we’re in a cult. The names mean nothing. Just ego stroking. I respect Daisaku Ikeda but he’d be the first to tell me that legacy is not important. It’s about the changes you can make and the energies you can shift, and seeking congratulations just makes you corrupt.

I felt modern in there, taking photos with my phone. But I did.

The museum adjoining the site talks of hoards of gold, deliberately sequestered in Jersey by ancient Celts. The biggest ever one was discovered, and many more. “In the ancient world, Jersey was a place they went to bury their wealth”. That’s psychic geography right there. The function has remained unchanged for millennia.

We drove by the house I grew up in. Maybe they’ve sold it now. On top of a hill, by a dolmen, near that site. They dug a swimming pool. I would like to have just been there to look at the earth they threw away from that dig. How lucky I was to grow up in such a place of power. What were the things that were whispering to me as a child? I still wish I had been able to buy it back for 13.5 million. Next time round.