Author: albarclay

Some matinees have been cut from the schedule. I’m sad about it as I wanted this show to sell and sell dammit. I want them to make the money they deserve. Production budget is very solid. It looks fantastic. I’m not on production team this year, and there is a tiny bit more separation. Normally I’m building the set and taking out unnecessary tables and counting seats and working things out. I think if Jack and I were still the acting pair we would still be rolling out the empty tables before the show, knowing how much nicer it’d be if we didn’t have empties. But Will is an actor only, and I see and respect that.

I’m not on production. I remember once, at The Arts, two audience members arrived late and ended up sitting in the corner. “We’ve paid the same as them,” they said. “Why have we got a worse view.” Those two people left early. Because of those two out of however many thousands, there’s a stratified pricing plan along the lines of what Punchdrunk did when I finally abandoned hope that Felix would learn integrity. I really don’t like tiered pricing… It does give a level to the show. I can bring it into my audience stuff, and I do. But the practical upshot is that most nights I’m playing to a row of empty tables with shadowy people behind. It doesn’t help that my contact lenses seem to have been siezed in customs.

I’ll play to and with whoever. Tonight we had the owner of The Pembroke Pub in Grouville, having dragged the landlord with him. The owner was dressed as Santa and the landlord an elf. He was pretending to be incognito Santa. It was delightful. He was wonderful craic and has apparently been evangelising the show to his regulars in Grouville, my home parish, on the strength of the Beowulf that Jack and I gave birth to a few years ago and Will did.

There’s definitely a strong audience in Jersey. There’s also a lot of money, so the Amdram scene is developed. I went to see a Durrell show some years ago at The Arts Centre and it was delightful. Tickets were cheap because they have the building and all the artists are doing it for free. You can do that if daddy lives in magical moneyland. Dicky Dodgem has never been voted off the board this year. He buried his money so he wouldn’t have to pay tax, but then forgot where it was so was borrowing from Scrooge to mount search expeditions. As far as the good people of Jersey are concerned, he’s an out and out goodie. In London or York he’s gone by the end of week one. But yeah, people are clearly happy to slog their guts out in exchange for being told how very very good they are at acting as well as divorce law. That doesn’t cut it with me sadly. Show me the money.

The few shows I did at the start of my career in pub theatres where the economics weren’t working: they did me more harm than good. Because people like me now don’t want to see talented actors giving their shit away. It drops the price across the industry. So young actors end up wasting their time doing something for “exposure” where the majority of people who watch them think of them as blacklegs.

This is the issue here. Jersey people are used to Amdram prices. That could not sustain a show like ours, which is actually very reasonably priced for an excellent meal and show. But you have to come to know how professional and together it all is, as it is an unfamiliar offering for the island. And the main paper didn’t run an article for way too long and then finally just rehashed an opinion piece from a smaller paper.

I would have preferred a day off today, as is traditional, and actually, genuinely, this evening’s show after 3 days of 2 show days… that was the reason I kicked off with my agent and insisted on cranking the fee up. I knew how tired I would be. Now some matinees have been cancelled as undersold and I feel bad for production. Jack and Adam have been slogging their guts off for months to get this on. I just get to show up and play. Man, I really wish we could sell out the rest of the run.

This afternoon we had Holly and her family in, as part of a well sold kids matinee. We cut all the swearing and our inprov is made clean. Jeff the Pervert Strangler becomes a ballet dancer and pirouettes for us. Sue is so happy that all she can do is shout “Woohoo!” It is nothing to do with her alcohol consumption.

There’s a game. Holly very actively wanted to play it. It involves getting up onto stage and sitting in all the lights, in Scrooge’s chair.

Holly is 7. “She saw a video of you guys online and insisted that she really wanted to go,” her mum told me after the show. She’s definitely the youngest person we’ve ever had up playing the game. I have a suspicion she’ll be an actor though, and do it well. She was pretty grounded. But watching her calibrate the experience of being in the light like that was remarkable. There’s quite a hefty rig. If the cumulus and haze has been rolling you really can’t see the audience without stepping out of it. I forget how I automatically try and stand where I’m blinded, knowing it’s the best place. She was momentarily dumbfounded seeing things from our side, but we watched her comprehend how we can mostly only pretend to see the audience when the lights are up. Her brilliant mum came up to help keep her safe. “I’m invisible,” mum announced, and hid behind the chair. Holly just made sense of it, in her own time, and won the game better than plenty of drunk people have over the years, with such a supportive audience and her ace Spanish mum hiding behind the chair, realising in the moment that she’s probably reared an actor.

Will and I have secured our tigers and how we coexist. He’s a fire tiger, I’m a wood tiger. We both like to play, and we both talk too much. We have learned how to start editing each other. Great new friends, we are. He’s a joy. He plays the fire, I try and plug the roots in, and we both get lost in our own ideas.

In any sensible world we would have a day off tomorrow. It is the thing that I balked at most when I saw the dates, just as I know what happens to our voices. No Monday off after 3 back to back 2 show days. It’s tough. We are both vocally tired but full functioning… we are aware of upper register bits that are a struggle. A full day with steam etc would guarantee a clean week. Not to be.

So I’m gonna get in the bath now and then collapse, relatively sober.

Moments like watching Holly calibrate what it meant to be in the light, and then guess that hard question for a 7 year old… Joy

A full house tonight. Drunk as skunks. It pleases me to be the permission for their chaos while pretending to hate chaos.

Problem is, at the end of the day, I’m spent. I’ve only got one thought in my head and that’s how I’ve got two shows tomorrow and I did two tonight. I’m happily tipsy after Tiny Tim’s table left with untouched prosecco in abundance and alerted us to it. I suspect an extra hour on the licensing would have been too much money but a shame we couldn’t get it for weekends. We went up really late tonight because of all the bar orders being honoured. We ALWAYS open late to accommodate the bar. It rankles with my professionalism. I’ve never been in a show that expects to open late. Normally that’s one of the stage management pridefails.

That said I am happier to open the show late than to have that stage manager that literally hates the show and keeps going on about their idea of what “immersive” means and why we aren’t living up to that very limited idea. Bullshit pride and sectarianism. I get it. Some idiots would bill their show as “immersive” because audience were invisible watchers in a kitchen and some people had an *actual sink* behind them that was randomly used at one point or whatever. But yeah, we had a stage manager one year only with an extremely narrow frame, a very big NO, and the aegis to tell us all why they didn’t like the show they had agreed to work on all season. Thanks. Hmm.

In 9 years of doing this show though we’ve only had that one negative team member.

This year is too much of a sausage party for sure. But my dad would always say that Jersey is 20 years behind the mainland. The sausage is the way it has fallen. The known people with the known skillsets were available without seeking. There was no need for auditions. Untried people can bring negativity, such as the SM I’m referencing above. They were lovely, and my friend, but it was very important that we all knew how they didn’t like or respect the show we were busting our nuts on.

This evening I was paid to bring my cards and read for Aylar, the violinist. She needed some advice and Alice’s Tarot helped. Sara observed how I transform when I’m speaking through those cards. Aylar commented on exactly that as well.

Transforming energy, reflecting it, and doing it from chaos. Thanks Tom, Al, Caroline, Alice… all the humans at the root of shifting me into these overlapping practices of teaching people to be more Christmassy and helping them sort their blocks out. And you of course, my fellow cats and cat lovers. I’m turning in. Two big days ahead. Nice to think about woowoo but in the end I’ve got a job to do.

Lovely show tonight. Getting fuller. We had a brilliantly conflicted review in The Bailwick Express where she went expecting to hate it and remembered to have fun. She was one of the only people I’ve known to give a straight “no” to Scrooge when he looks for a dance partner in Fezziwig’s Ball. She thawed considerably by the end. I had no idea she was a reviewer. But she was. Not for the Jersey Evening Post, which is the holy grail. But in their absence I’ll take The Bailwick Express and her strangely reluctant enjoyment and understanding of what it is to do immersive theatre. Aylar the violinist had a similar reaction to the writer’s wonderment at her playing violin “with no sheet music”…

Adam the producer often says that, with the opera house having been closed for so long, the people of Jersey are used to only having amateur offerings. To have something that is produced, that is clean when it needs to be clean, that, essentially, is professional… They aren’t expecting it. Yes this show invites some flowing. It is the result of my and Jack’s work with TC and The Factory where we try and mix fixed with flowing so it is simultaneously alive and coherent.

Last night the sound guy queued a child shouting “fuck off” as I raised a bittersweet glass to absent friends at the end. There are still strange and gorgeous moments of chaos. The audience interaction tonight was so deeply satisfying, and we’ve really nailed down the tech. Will and I have started to learn basic telepathy although we can only do easily missed monosyllables, unlike Jack and I who can have full and instant conversations and frequently did.

I’m enjoying not having to think about chairs and candles etc. Stage management is doing most of my pre-show checks. I then do them again but I don’t have to be there hours before the show to help launder tablecloths and sweep up detritus and work out how the hell everyone is going to sit down and eat.

My only great sadness is that the little Portuguese place over the road will be closed from tomorrow. They are all off home for Christmas. No more lava hot coffee for a pound and cheap cake. No more steak and cheese baps for two quid. They’ve stopped me from blowing half my fee by being cheap.

Company drinks. Two shows tomorrow so I won’t have loads. But I’ll certainly have a few…

Two years ago, during a show at the Auberge du Nord, in the dinner section where Scrooge is learning about Christmas, this odd lumpish guy asked to kiss Ebenezer. I resisted, of course, but eventually under the aegis that it would help me learn something, and with the vigorous encouragement of his friends, I allowed it. He surprised me and went for one plum on the lips. It stuck in my mind because the guy seemed really off. Negative energy coming off him in waves. Something very odd about him. Definitely straight. I assumed it was some stupid Christmas dare between him and his colleagues. Scrooge disliked the whole interaction but built it into the show. “And that man kissed me!” etc etc

On Friday night he was in again. “My mate gave you COVID,” says some douchey guy to Scrooge in the dinner section. “He hates amdram.” “I do too.” “Oh yeah this isn’t amdram. Well he hates it anyway. He kissed you on the lips so he gave you COVID cos he had COVID.” (May I just point out that this sort of interaction is extremely unusual in the show.) “I didn’t get COVID,” I said. “He gave it to you. You kissed him.” And then he points at the guy. “Go talk to him.” And there he is, this same lumpish guy, sitting there not making eye contact, radiating negative energy in his Christmas jumper. “Go talk to him. Go on. He hates this. We’ve brought him for a joke.” “I’m not here to police people’s enjoyment,” I say, and leave the whole interaction. “What a twat,” I think to myself. I don’t bring him into you show this time.

Today I went for a coffee in the pizza place. There are two women having lunch. “We saw you on Friday,” they say. “And two years ago you kissed our friend at The Auberge. He’s upstairs. Do you want to talk to him?” “No, I thought he was very odd energy.” “You grabbed his face and gave him a big kiss on the lips. I think that’s a weird thing to do, right at the height of COVID.” “I have no recollection of this interaction.” I exit the conversation. But I’m weirded out now.

So now this morality vacuum of a human being is trying to score social points by embellishing the story and making out like I kissed him on my own impulse. It’s ridiculous. What a total berk. It makes me really fucking angry.

Meanwhile on various Jersey Facebook groups, admins are taking down positive reviews of our show and fronting reviews for the local amdram musical. We aren’t in competition, or we certainly shouldn’t be. The two things are chalk and cheese. We can exist very happily next to each other. But… I no longer live in this small island, and I’m remembering the behaviours that propelled me away from it.

It made me really uncomfortable, the kiss business. “He hates amdram” they said. Yeah because he has no charisma and wants to be the centre of attention anyway, which is how most amdram can be described.

I didn’t want that fucking kiss at the the time, he was out of line going for my lips, it creeped me out in show, and doubly so now I understand the whole purpose of it was to infect me with COVID. My decision in show two years ago to humour him has now led to him turning the story round to make it about him. When you look at the shape of it, it’s really a miracle he’s not in prison if that’s how he goes about his life. Grrrr

Schools matinee this morning. We had to cut all the filth. No dinner section either. I had to tell one of the teachers off who kept on going “shhh” when I was encouraging chaos. “I’m perfectly capable of doing that for myself when I need it thank you.” There was plenty of chaos thereafter and I was perfectly happy about that. We always got silence when we needed it. Will and I both love this kind of work and we both know how it works. This evening we were talking about the arbitrary nature of literally everything and how important it is to make peace with the fact that things are random as fuck. We both really bonded on that. We’ve both seen people go kablooie by hoping desperately that things are all connected and make some kind of sense.

They aren’t and they don’t.

Will and I have both understood that. Patterns are comforting but rubbish. That knowledge informs our attack on both world and work. It’s joyful when you stop having to worry, like one old actor friend of mine worried a decade ago: “I think I’m on some sort of blacklist.” No. We wish there was something concrete like that to make sense of our hurdles. But the sad desperate truth is that we are not important enough, none of us are. There is no pattern because the world is arbitrary random insane cruelty. For everyone.

As soon as you embrace that, then you find the vast wierd joy and the delightful power of Eris. That’s where I’ve been for over two decades, and Will right alongside me. He’s been doing Shitfaced Shakespeare, which is a bridge too far even for my degree of chaoslove. I dislike glamorising the thing that killed my mum. And yes it was more The Daily Mail than the booze, but she wouldn’t have looked to the “glamorous” killer refuge if the world hadn’t been painted so dark. And that shitty organ is just another example of painting bad cause and effect diagrams, the thinking that destroys our peace.

We had two shows today. The first was that schools matinee and I had a small cousin in the audience. My first ever school was there with the pink edges to the grey uniform. I can barely remember my friends from the brief time I was there. Mostly girls even then. Boys annoyed me, but Jocelyn… Lavinia and Marina. Oh and Antony! Those are the only 4 names I remember. I know all 4 surnames too, although likely the women’s have changed. I wonder if any of them are still on the island?

Thinking it through it is very very odd to be back here staying in a Premier Inn. Before mum died she told me “Peter and I have made sure you will always have a home in Jersey.” That wasn’t the case. I’ve got to know the hotels here in the town where I was born. It’s on their budget though. And I hope they get some profile in the local papers, cos this is a wonderful show and it is a shame it isn’t sold out, frankly. Even if sales don’t affect my pay at all. I prefer to play to a full house, obviously…

Up in the morning after a decent lie in and off to the Atlantic coast to have breakfast with family. Then a walk down the huge empty sand, and coffee at either end. There are parts of this island that can look like the end of the world, particularly here at the west side.

By lunchtime I was back in St Helier, and off we went to Mont Orgueil Castle at Gorey. It is a looming yet squat monster, redundantly hanging over the east side of the island, unused now and when will it be used again? A castle. Don’t try and invade us. We are Norman. We will conquer the large land to the north with our arrows and horses, and populate it with more castles to make it ours forever.

Knowing Will and Kiera, I figured that the best place for the last of the light was La Hougue Bie. This is one of the greatest assets of Jersey and nobody in the island gives a fuck. It’s a Neolithic tomb, over 7000 years old, designed to catch the light at equinox. the stones and the path to the omphalos still have weight and power. Christians have put a chapel on top much as they tried with Glastonbury. Nothing wrong with syncretism – Westminster Abbey is entirely on the footprint of Thorney Island, the most important druid school in the ancient world, teaching a great deal more than obedient subservience to a higher power.

It’s built around. Space is at a premium in Jersey. A road passes right by the entrance.

Nevertheless the power is undeniable. We were only there a moment. It once more led me to realise how, growing up in Grouville, I was exposed to seriously ancient things without even knowing. The hill I lived on is right by an ancient dolmen. The guys who turned my first home into a multimillion pound romanesque … thing… they likely secretly dug through inestimably ancient tombs to make their swimming pool.

We didn’t take the baby inside.

Evening took us to St Brelade and a church built to respond to the sea, with an old fisherman’s chapel where once there was something pre-poseidonic. Again with the syncretism. These places are still so strong that if you are listening you can feel the weight of the ages. That place punches you in the sea gut. I’m gonna aim for midnight mass there at Christmas, to sing new songs in an old place.

Then dinner with an old friend, and remembering the faith that opened it all for me back here back then. The trust in a higher power. A wonderful thing when detached from arrogance and control.

All said, a very curious and largely delightful day off.

First week done.

When I saw the schedule for this I jumped out of my skin. I told my agent at the time I didn’t particularly want to have to do it. I was looking at the next few weeks. The lack of rest.

Now it’s my job and I’m contracted and frankly I love it and I’ll pull it off. But… tomorrow will be my last day off until Christmas. Here we go!!

It’s a huge team over at The Freedom Church. The bit of me that was almost a vicar loves the fact we are in a space run by evangelicals. It used to be a cinema. Now the Nicky Gumbell lot are here. I feel right at home in both experiences, even if nowadays my feet would probably turn the grass black in The Vatican.

With Jack having switched to production and an employed actor playing Marley, I have found myself unusually separate from the production aspect.

In Sheffield, Jack and I were deposited in a huge empty space with a bar manager. We found some flats. Over the rehearsal period we built a set with whatever the fuck we could find. One wall was entirely debt board. We ran it for the first time about an hour before the house opened on the first night.

In Bishopsgate Jack and I were freezing to death with Anna-Fleur, worrying about rats and dogpoo. We weren’t alone building the set but we still did it, mostly in the literal actual dark. I laid the vinyl floor for the kitchen and then we built what we could. We had one floodlight to work with. We had to take off and then replace huge window shutters every night. The portaloos filled up the first night and we had to plunge them while the audience was coming in.

At The Arts I stood in the dark in freshly spilt red paint just before the show, unkowing. “Sticky floor…” After Jack went on and was already talking, India and I realised that it was paint. We ran a superquick workaround in about 2 minutes involving tissues, stripping and panic. I went on with no shoes on and with just a tiny red spot on one of the hats. The hat is still part of the show. The red spot is still visible. It still makes my heart turn over.

Previous years I’ve always been part of production too without really realising it isn’t my responsibility. I’ve been doing build and break, I’ve been thinking about seating and organising the room every night to fit the numbers. I’ve been working around it when it is clear there are more sold than can be sat. Jack and I have always made it work.

This year, Jack is pure production and I’m pure actor. Nevertheless my only pair of longjohns, which have never fit anyway, finally split this evening. I’ll be the one replacing them and invoicing. I used to have to do my own laundry, but stage management have taken that this year. I find that I don’t trust it like I trust myself, but I’ve got no choice as I’m not in digs with a washing machine. Jack and I used to take it in turns to take it home if we weren’t sharing.

This show will always be a team effort. It is unusual being much purer in my “actor” role than usual. I’m glad I’m still overlapping other jobs though. After all, it’s Christmas Carol.

Another late night. I’m in my Premier Inn room, but the staff have caught on that I’m Scrooge. I think some audience members dobbed me in last night. Now they all know so I have to be on best behaviour. No more getting my room turned over when it’s a pants explosion. I’ve got a reputation to uphold.

The majority of people I’m coming across this run are delightful. We are running a bar here though, and the show always goes up late simply because the bar is open as long as possible. Plus this is Jersey. There’s fuck all happening. As a result we frequently have audience members getting smashed during the show. Tonight we had one guy who was very hard to shut up. I had to employ the old teacher trick of giving him a solo voice for a while and then congratulating him. I let him sing a solo bit and told him how tuneful he was. I did it cos I needed him to shut his cakehole in Yet To Come when the fourth wall drops like a portcullis and I can’t do anything to affect the audience outside of delivery.

Lou is on the debt board. In fact, any of you who I know personally and who read this blog – you are all probably on it. Someone tried to get Lou forgiven this evening but it didn’t pass muster, so Osbert Tits was forgiven instead the little wuss. He runs a bird sanctuary. The rest of you, I’ll let you know when / if you get off.

Two more shows tomorrow.

This has always been about coralling hammered people. Now I’m in a room with 200 of them and I’m insulting them. I sometimes have a moment where I really understand how lucky the few idiots running the world are that the majority of people don’t just tear them apart.

I went down a Campbell hole with Will this evening. I was talking about king sacrifice, and trying to reference this passage:

I kinda wish the leaders we tolerate still knew this was the end of their time in charge.

I’m happy to be high status in a silly drunk room though. And Will is a delight to work with even if he reminds me of me.

Oh lord.

Two shows tomorrow. Press night just done. I’m in at half ten. I expect I’ll wake up and l go straight to the venue via coffee.

My parking permit blew out of the car a few days ago. We stopped at Corbiere and the wind almost took the door off its hinges. When I got back to St Helier it wasn’t on the dashboard. £156 quid down the pan. Lou said I shouldn’t write it off. I couldn’t see how a permit that can’t be recognised would be replaced.

I paid for parking the last few days as I just didn’t have time to go to Sand Street for a new permit.

Today I went to Sand Street. I said “I expect there’s nothing you can do, but my permit blew out the door at Corbiere a few days ago.” “Oh. That one!” And next thing I know I’ve got a familiar looking permit that has clearly been totally soaked. Only in Jersey. I’m glad I didn’t replace it immediately. Someone handed it in. Thank you someone.

Press night. Normally that’s a stressful thing but I’m over getting stressed now. Especially with this show. It’s fun. It’s meant to be fun. If you fail to have fun then there’s very little we can do for you. No show exists for this long if it doesn’t work. And the utter delight is how it shifts every year, it just keeps morphing and growing and spiking out new shoots of mad joy. It’s a delight to be in, and the smiles we get are contagious.

I’m home in my purple room. It’s 1am. I had Jack Daniels. Brian was here for a flying visit. Damn it has been a lovely day but with 2 shows tomorrow and booze in my veins, all I want to do now is lie prone for 8 hours and then run and do laundry before the first show starts.

The call literally just came through. 1:02am. And yes it’s 10.30. Doors open at noon. Technically the half should be 11:20. I’m surprised these calls are so early. Normally I’m in the venue an hour before the call if I can be, so with this stage management they are making the call my habitual arrival time without even knowing it.

But I’m gonna put myself down now so I can dream out all the press night Jack Daniels.

I asked Jack for a photo. He sent me none.