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A rainy and blustery evening in Chelsea. I diverted to the cricket pavilion on my way to work. It’s not the busiest polling station in the country, certainly not at 3.30pm. There was an old lady leaving as I arrived, and a brisk old fellow striding through the rain behind me as I came. I was only voter number 319. I made my cross in the box. Nobody exit polled me.

Last election my constituency swung to Labour by a tiny increment – I think it was about 3 votes. It has always been thought of as a safe Tory seat, so it came as a surprise to me – and lots of other folks.

I have no idea what I expect from this election. I guess we will just have to wait and see. I’m glad I voted at least. I have a feeling there will be a strong turnout. People are extremely polarised and even among my friends there is quite an assortment of people making noises in both directions, and a few people making noises in third and fourth and fifth directions. I only had four candidates to choose from and went with the one I thought had policies that aligned best. What more can you do? I watched him in a political broadcast and thought he was an awkward enough man, but he’s not here to make videos. He can leave that to me if there’s funding.

Now I’m in the dressing room pre-show, suited and booted so I can hang out with my friends afterwards. I’m gonna warm up now. I snored all night in central heating last night so my voice is bloody.

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Now I’m post show and feeling very very post show. We had some drinks and some revelations and frankly it all made me feel very small and very sick.

It’s interesting and annoying how quickly people can start to feel comparatively important. I think it’s at the heart of this election today, the human capacity for underserved self-importance. Boris thinks he’s deserving because he’s always been on that path, Jeremy thinks he’s deserving because he’s predicated his life to his personal form of morality. From the outside people warm to a sense of deserving. Confidence is easily mistaken for ability.

The electorate looks at one or two policies, or they think about what they love or what they hate. Mostly they are manipulated by the mainstream media and the people who shout the loudest because – (and I say this with a heavy heart) – because the bulk of people are too busy living their hard lives, and haven’t got time to find nuance in the arguments they hear. They do what they need and then realise territory has been grabbed by people with less to worry about. “Get it done” is a complete sentence in three syllables. Golden. “What are the ramifications?” is already way too long and you can’t get behind it in it same way. You can’t chant it.

I have no idea how it’ll fall tomorrow.

I’m just making a show with a friend. A good friend. Who won’t let me down.

The show I’m making is about togetherness. It’s about Christmas, and joy, and love and bringing disparate groups together for a meal. I’m so proud of it. You should come. And bring your family! No matter which way the vote goes tomorrow. Togetherness!

 

Today I went for a walk in the park. Much better use of my time pre-show than getting prepped for an audition. I’ve been doing this shit for pushing 20 years. Some of my old mates are internationally famous. It’s weird.

I got asked if I could cope being in a scene with someone we’ve all heard of yesterday, and I guess it’s a legitimate concern and it makes sense to ask it.

The place where I auditioned had a poster up for a film I’d worked on many years ago. I’d forgotten it mostly, but it was a big learning job for me. Seeing the poster reminded me.

I was flown to Thailand for it. I encountered the evil “fraud prevention” woman at Thai Airlines check in Heathrow, who caused me to have to wake up the whole production crew in Bangkok in order to get the credit card details that the flight was booked on. She wouldn’t let me on the flight otherwise. Nowadays I’d have got my agent to sort it, but back then I tried to sort it myself which made it look like it was my fault.

I arrived in Thailand on the back foot and then was given no sides. I didn’t know who I’d be playing. I was working with a director I admired for his early work. He hadn’t told me who I was playing. He’d just booked me. The sides came under my door at 9pm the day before the shoot. Nowadays I think I’d have got onto the front foot, asked more questions, and got more of a sense of what the hell was going on. Back then I was perhaps even starstruck. It seems absurd now, knowing how the industry works. But I think I was.

I shot a flashback sequence where the two principal actors were cgi mapped with dots on their faces. The idea was that they would have their faces mapped into younger looking versions. When it came to the edit and the budget, the obvious money save was the cgi, so the whole sequence went out the window. I’ve still got the credit. But that’s it. Shame. The footage would’ve been golden for my showreel.

I got sent the footage of some German TV I did over the summer, which is lovely although I’m the only person speaking English. I’m feeling very ready to start cracking back into screen work in the New Year. I’ll go out in Germany at Christmas, but dubbed. The footage can help make a showreel that’s not as catastrophically out of date as my current one that still has a montage (Cardinal sin).

I’m trying not to think about the recent meeting. But I’m aware it would be a good continuation. Insh’Allah.

Walking in the park is a very good way of derailing noisy head. It’s also good for just moving the body and the mind. I don’t have dayjobs currently, so as long as I’m in Mayfair for 5pm I’ve got the rest of the day to explore the world sober. I’m still not adept at winding the show out without alcohol, but I’m open to daytime suggestions of pleasant things. Today was a lovely walk in Battersea Park…

I woke up this morning, rolled over in bed and opened up my email to find out how long it would take to travel to my audition.

Panic!!!

This audition I’ve been building up to today, Tuesday afternoon … The email says it was on Monday afternoon.

I’ve missed the fucker. Cue a million misgivings and little insecurities about meetings missed and late for in the long distant past.

Cue arguments with myself about what might have been if I was more organised, old frustrations about my uncanny ability to self sabotage. “How could I have got it wrong?” I ask myself. On such an appropriate meeting for one of those jobs where even people in the industry have asked “how come you haven’t been in X ?” (Full disclosure – I didn’t get the time wrong. Stand down.)

Panic-Al is looking at options. Well, it’s at the production company offices rather than a rented space, I rationalise to myself. Someone’ll be there. The offers won’t be out yet.

I decide I’m just going to show up at the time I’ve got written down and try to charm my way into a meeting. If they haven’t got time to see me maybe I can still get away with going to Spotlight and paying them for fifteen minutes of self tape time, I decide. But still I’m disconsolate.

So I get up and mechanically shave my beard, wondering if there’s any reason to do so now. It’s cold…

I go back to bed a bit and lie there mumbling lines to myself. I haul myself up again and I select a suit and tie. Then back to bed where I brush up on my burr. I watch some videos in my little ball of misery. I prepare for war.

It doesn’t occur to me that the email I checked might have been an automatically generated one with an old time, which had been adjusted everywhere but there before my agent spoke to me. I’m running worst case scenarios in my head. I’m expecting to arrive and have the casting director actually set fire to me and throw me out the window. Then my agent, who has worked so hard to get this meeting for me, will release the wolves and I will have to flee.

Audition time.

No fire, no wolves.

In fact, nobody bats an eyelid at me arriving for my appointed time. I go in and do the tape. I’m sent away to return because they like me for another human-being in the story that, to my mind, might be even better casting for me.

I come back and the casting director takes her time with me and I leave happy after a respectful and enervating meeting that might lead to some changing work oh lord oh gods just bring it on nmhrk…

Then I preside over the IKEA Christmas party as Scrooge. Jack and I have the biggest and weirdest audience we’ve had in this venue. It’s entirely booked out by the one group. I make some reasonable jokes about flatpack furniture. I have a good chat with the IKEA sustainability manager who is glad we have a relationship with homeless charities. I notice that IKEA seems to be a good company with good ethics. I work harder than usual though, and now I’m in a bus trying to get home and spent spent spent so spent.

It’s been a good day, but a costly one. I was tired already. I’m more tired now. And this bus is determined to be as slow as possible…

Oh God. An early bed tonight. In theory it was my day off but in practice I went to the London Welsh Centre and rolled around on the floor with likeminded people. It’s a research and development for a potentially hilarious gig, and as is often the case when it comes to making theatre, a large portion of the day was spent playing around. I think we had some discoveries. I’m feeling pretty stretched out physically though. I was tired going in. I’m more tired going out. And I’ve got a meeting tomorrow that I’ve got to be prepared for. And it’s late.

Yesterday I wrote about my breakfast drunk and late. Today I’m pretty much sober but it’s early. I’m in bed, on my back, having dosed up on Actifed for dry coughs. The fuse is lit. I’ll be sleeping like a baby in twenty minutes. No more.

I do love the randomness that fills so much of my ordinary daytime. The fact that today I was rolling around in my tracksuit, tomorrow I’ll be standing very still in a suit and then back to prancing around in my nightie.

Today I was in a room with people I haven’t been in a room with for years. It still felt like yesterday that we had played. The fellowship of the jobbiejobbie actortypes. We remember. Some of us will get to go to sexy places together in spring and do fun things. All of us will likely be in a room together one day. Lots of nice people being friendly. Fuck I’m tired.

Trying to write this in this state is a hiding to nothing. I need my beauty sleep. I’m even shaving my beard tomorrow. Commitment to looking clean and professional. I’d say I’ll miss it but the damn thing’ll be back in no time.

Goodnight darlings. Yes that’s a sporran on my bedroom door. You’ve got a sporran on your bedroom door too.

Humbug. Och.

Zzzz.

Oh rubbish.

There’s always something you forget. I forgot the blog.

It’s the Hartshorn Hook Christmas party. This is a company I care deeply about. Their party is in the building where we are doing Christmas Carol. Of all the nights.

I’ve got an R&D tomorrow for a different company, paid, for a job I’d totally love to do. Starting in the morning. Early.

There were friends I really wanted to spend time with. Humans that I’ve mingled with loads over many strange changes. I left early but I tried to make every second count. But I’ve just got home and realised that despite the need for an early bed I haven’t written to you lot.

Had I been a bit more together I’d have written about my breakfast ages ago. Although my breakfast was not particularly edifying today. It was Weetabix, with hot water and a splash of milk, coupled with enough espresso to cause a riot. Hot weetabix was the only thing I’d eat as a child, and my pre microwave mother taught me to have it with hot water from the kettle and a spot of cold milk to pretend it was hot milk. Her labour saving has become my habit. I’m very happy with it that way. I might sprinkle a bit of sugar on top. But only if dad isn’t watching.

Dad was a Scotsman, and was perhaps more tyrannical about porage than anything else. He would make a bowl and put it in front of me as I arrived at breakfast. He cooked it with salt. If I added milk, his attention would prick up. If I reached for any form of sugar his attention would EXPLODE. It used to make me retch, unmilked and unsweetened, that shitty scrutinised porage. But I would sit there under his scrutiny, and finish my salty oats because he was dad and he knew best. Maybe it would make me a man? Certainly it would teach me that you can eat all sorts of fucking horrible shit and pretend like you enjoy it. That’s a skill that’s done me well. Dad taught me a huge amount by being an angry and very particular irascibile beautiful bastard.

The fact he was a Scotsman living away from home, with his musicality and his burr – it has suddenly come home for me, as my agent has put me up for a role that is exactly that. A well known figure who speaks with the same burr that distinguished my father and my half brothers. My extended family are just plain Scottish. The burr is only relevant for people who live amongst the English and wish to be understood. I am the youngest. I never lived in Scotland. My natural accent has none of that character, but I know it.

It’s meant to be my day off tomorrow but I’m doing this R&D and then on Tuesday I’m going to need to be on point with my burr.

Meh. I’m off to sleep. My key is in a flowerpot outside. I’m hoping my friend Anna will find it.

Here’s a photo of lots of boxes of crackers. It’s the only photo I took today. I probably thought I’d write something about them. Ho hum. Good night.

 

I still haven’t got a Christmas Tree at home and thinking about it I’m gonna need a new oven. How does one replace an oven? Are the fittings standard? Is the hob part of it or separate? I’ve got a marble worktop with a hole in it. Any new hob needs to fit the hole. Is the hob part of the oven? I’ve only got a few weeks until Christmas, but I’m gonna need to be able to cook a lot. I’m not doing that with a fucked oven. Shit. Research time.

This is the sort of thing I think about as I come home from the show. Somehow I haven’t got sick yet even though I’ve shaken a lot of hands this season with audience members. The next few days will be busy in terms of working out Christmas stuff, prepping for a meeting, doing an R&D and the relentless march of the shows. But I reckon I’m going to have to learn about new ovens pretty quickly or there’ll be no turkey. Which reminds me, I’ll also need to order a bird. Ach. It begins. Not too late yet thankfully. But time to get on it.

Before the show, Jack and I eat a growing pile of pills. Omega oils, so our brains and bodies are functioning. Echinacea for the good old placebo effect. It must work if it costs so much. Vitamin C in the hopes that some of it gets into our immune system. Sucky gelatine sweets to taste nice I mean to coat our throats. I even find myself doing a vocal warm-up in our little gunpowder closet. Mostly sirening. There’s no room to roll around.

The room we change in was the gunpowder store when our building was a rifle club. If somebody wanted to they could bang us up in there when we were changing and we wouldn’t be found until somebody excavated us a million years from now. If the Christmas revelry in London turned into zombie apocalypse – and let’s be honest it’s always a genuine risk – we might be able to defend ourselves for a while in there. We have stuck advent calendars on the walls. We have done what we can to make it pleasant. Which is more than I can say for my home at the moment which is still woefully underchristmassed, not even taking into account the oven situation.

Rhys is selling trees up in Catford this season so I might go get one. Failing that I’m just going to have to throw baubles everywhere and work out which convenient place I put the lights in last year for easy finding. The last few years it has been achieved by drunk Al and Brian in one evening, alongside whoever else we can coerce. This year I’m thinking I’ll put a friend of mine to use who is staying over on Sunday night. They are, after all, a theatre designer. They understand the game of making a bad room good.

It’s going to be epic. It always is. But it’s time for me to start thinking about it now. And I’ve got all these interesting meetings running interference on my concentration…

And I’ve still got mice.

I also have a lovely accordion shaped decoration from Alice that I managed not to destroy despite having it in my pocket all day…

Well then. I’ve been home all night watching Netflix and calling it research. We had a lovely house in for Friday night. A few Americans, a diverse bunch of Brits and one guy who had literal brainfreeze when asked the simplest of maths problems. 6+2, I asked the room, and he immediately shouted “Socialism”. I then derailed a number of my other maths problems to be other “isms” ending with “capitalism”. But it was one of those delightful confused and drunk audiences. Up for a good time. Having a good time. Ask them tomorrow where they were and they’ll say “Well, at 4pm I had a jägerbomb and then I remember some fellow in a nightie getting right up in my grill about arithmetic or Christmas and it was great.” Thank God we feed them though. Those poor bastards wouldn’t even know their own name tomorrow if we hadn’t given them ALL THE TURKEY. As it is they went home safe and nobody was sick on me.

It’s the Christmas party season. Oh hell. Millions of people across the nation going for free drinks with people they hate who they have to pretend to like. Medication through consumption. Consensus through excess. Mess. Messy messy mess. Walking through Central London is like a Hieronymous Bosch right now. Costumed idiots in large numbers getting consumed up their own bumholes. Shouting, drinking, more shouting, more drinking. It’s a jungle out there. Sometimes I wonder how I keep from going under.

I’m back home and since Twatgate I haven’t seen my new flatmate. I know she hasn’t been murdered as we’ve been messaging and the content is authentic her. She’s with her mother, who I think might be a complicated human. I’ll have the conversation when the time is ripe. I’ve been glad of the space. But now we are open, I’ve got my days back. Hooray. For a month I am THAT guy, your actor friend working in the West End. No booze but late lunches in Soho, walks in the park, oh, shall we go to the museum? Ah Ha an understudy show you say? At 2? Oh how delightful.

I went for lunch in Chinatown with Alice today. We went to one of those places where they rip the meat from a live animal and all the waiters professionally hate you. It was tasty and brothy. I’m still not very good at eating but I made a good shift at it. Alice ended up with the leftovers.

Then to the Curzon for coffee and cake with Minnie. And I ate a whole brownie. D

God I’ve missed Min. Best friends are best for a reason. She’s a mother these days but still a hungry and brilliant actor. She let me back into her life, the details and the ups and downs. I let her into mine. She’s amazing. Being back in the uk is infinitely better now I’ve remembered I can show her the wet parts of my heart and know she understands them.

Then to The Arts for coffee with Marie. We have a tradition of coffee and braindump. It’s a lovely tradition and needed to be actioned before she goes to New Zealand forever tomorrow. We caught twenty minutes. And in that twenty minutes my agent phoned me up with fucking brilliant news of a meeting they had got for me. (Annoyingly hush hush and ndatastic etc). God DAMN I love my agent. I’m a lucky sod, and I know it. Humbug. Bring it. Christmas. Gotta get the job first… Merry Christmas. Humbug.

As I was walking away from the venue this evening, I noticed the intersecting street was blocked off by paramedic cars. Small groups of people were standing around on the pavements watching. In the middle of the road, somebody was being rolled in what looked very much like a tablecloth. They were in the middle of the road. There was no sign of a fucked up motorbike from my angle, but the road had been cordoned off. I had no idea what had killed the person. But the human shaped thing wrapped in a cloth was very much not an alive person, and it was in the middle of the road. As I walked further I saw a full size ambulance approaching, sirens on.

Fuck knows what happened there. But there was a dead human in the road, right next to my work. There is a structure in this society that covers over death. I’ve never been entirely comfortable with it. Whatever happened to this human, the first reaction was to cover their remains. The road was blocked and a local business lent tablecloths once the paramedic cars had drawn a flatline – unless the paramedics have tableclothlike things. At the time I walked by, the paramedics were rolling the body in cloth. The ambulance came as I was walking away.

Maybe it could’ve been left for longer. Maybe more people could’ve seen the body. Maybe. Because we really don’t get death in this society. It isn’t seeded into our understanding of life when we are young. It should be. But death comes as a shock to too many people. I was young when it took my parents, but there are plenty who are younger and less prepared.

I think we shouldn’t be as protected from it as we are. I think that we should encounter it more closely. Halloween for instance. How much more healthy if it’s about the people we loved who are gone than if it’s about pretendy ghosties and skeletons. These tropes have come out of avoidance. It can still be about ghoulies and ghosties but you can set a place at the table for grandpa in front of the kids or something, and just bring in that helpful thing about memory and the fact that we are not forever.

Anyway, I walked across London today after another lovely show, and forgot to take any photos until I thought I might wait for a bus. The performance space is about an hour on foot from my house, and forty minutes by public transport. I tend to walk back, although it’s tempting to get a bus and write as we drive. Tonight the timings were all wrong though and I was on my own. I wandered past all the huge Christmas lights. Mixed in with all this brightness, young homeless women in supermarkets try to persuade you to buy them nappies. I bought two packs the other day. Why not. Angry eyed men ask for change. Others prostate themselves with signs.

We are into election fever. People are starting to polarise themselves. Liberals are idiots. Tories are sociopaths. Corbyn is stupid. Boris is dishonest.

Fuck the personalities. All I see is the NHS. Life vs Death. I see the American system. I see how extraordinary our system is by comparison. Yes, if you’re rich, vote Tory. They’ll help you stay rich. If you’re not rich though, don’t get sick or you’re dead.

That body in the road. Two paramedic cars. A full on ambulance. Without the NHS, the next of kin would’ve got a bill for actual thousands of pounds. For their dearest dying unexpectedly in an inconvenient place. “Remember when we lost everything because mum died in Mayfair at Christmastime?”

Fuck that. But it’s where we look to be going.

Home again. Nobody but me tonight so far. I haven’t spoken to my flatmate about the sociopath yet. Time will find it’s way. I’m gambling that she doesn’t read my blog. The catchment is deliberately small so here’s hoping.

I went to a new theatre space today to read a lovely play. It’s a three hander – two men and one woman – dealing with musical people from nazi Germany. It’s about guilt and about the things we choose to remember vs the things we choose to forget. It’s a well researched and cleanly written piece of theatre.

I was in a room with two other very proficient actors. The writer was also in attendance as was a director and a designer and a producer. It’s always a ceremony. You get coffee. There are snacks on the table. There’s water. People are convivial. Then, at a certain point, no matter where we are sitting, we start to read.

I am no expert on Nazi Germany. Alma Rosé is mostly unknown to me. My character speaks her surname the first time it’s mentioned in the script. And there is no acute accent in the script I was sent, so I pronounce it like the flower, only to have the reading stopped for a go-over. There’s a lot of assumption of knowledge here. I’ve spent my life geeking out in other directions than Nazi Germany. I’m not made to feel bad for my ignorance, mind. I’m just made to feel it, as if I should know all the things in the writer’s head by instinct having had no time with the script, sight-reading opposite an actor who has had TIME and laid down their performance, German accent and all. I decided that despite my good German accent I wasn’t going to follow suit as accent would come at the expense of meaning so early in the process.

The reading was a good example of the play as it is right now. It’s in development. People speak at great length and then cede ground to other people who have just as much to say. I found myself partly longing for that sort of work. God. It would be so pleasant for a change. Rather than having to be constantly alert, sweating through hours and hours alert, you could just decide on the shape of the argument and the nuance with the director and then just cookie cut it every night. No need to be awake to each individual audience member. Very few quick exchanges. Easy work…

I enjoyed reading the part. Even though it came to me last minute, it was excellent casting for me for many reasons. But my primary feeling was that the whole part was unnecessary. The play deals with two figures who actually lived, and explodes an imagined interaction between them. My character is a pretend therapist for one of them who time-hops into a made up waiter in a hotel where they were stuck back in the dark times. Both my parts are invented, unlike theirs. If my character time-hops, why can’t it be hers? She should double as the made up therapist and as Alma. It would be tighter, neater and cheaper. Not to put myself out of a part. But part of my job is to make things as efficient as possible and if I can save budget now, I might reap it later. Life is long.

Meanwhile, humbug. Come see Carol. Appropriately, John Hopkins, an old friend, has been on my debt board for five years. He was freed from penury tonight, of all nights, when he is going to press as Scrooge at Bristol Old Vic. Strange convergence. Something auspicious perhaps…

Here’s a nice review of our show.

We will certainly sell out. I can’t get you comps because of the food. But come play if you can.

Well. A calm night at home. No sign of the new temporary flatmate or of her probably sociopathic amigo. So I’m winding myself down towards bed ahead of a read through tomorrow. I’ve got myself home early. I’m already mostly able to sleep, which is good as now we are open I’ve got to start activating my days. I’ve still got the hammer on my bed just in case they show up at midnight fighting in which case I might have to appear backlit in my pants with it casually in one hand like I’ve been doing repairs. “Where are you sleeping tonight, Mark? The tubes stop running soon.”

I slept most of today because I could and because I was awake most of last night. It’s like when I had to sleep in the top bunk above a Brazilian fascist on Camino. I start to imperceptibly vibrate when I’m too close to poison. I can’t shut down easily in the vicinity of a dark personality. I didn’t last night. I ran into K in the morning before I was awake fully. I told her I didn’t want him staying the night again. That’s the best I’ve managed so far but I only had 30 seconds. I care about her enough to not want her to be swept up in his shit. I also despair of her enough to know already that if there’s shit to be swept up in, she’ll sweep herself into it if she isn’t swept. And I’m utterly certain that I’m too old for this crap so she’s getting her notice the next time I can sit with her. But I’m busy. So who knows when that’ll be.

The show was great tonight. It always is. That’s the anchor. We had some excellent notices over the weekend including this one – (although the mulled wine mentioned at the start was only for press). None of the reviews got my acting name right, which is a Christmas Carol tradition – (this time I’m Alexander Barclay). But they all got the show although The Stage were unnecessarily sniffy about our designer, who transformed a horrible impossible shooting range that had never been used as a theatre into a good looking and viable performance space with only a few days on the job, mostly through goodwill. Shitty for her as she did something out of goodwill and it burnt her unnecessarily. And that’s the nature of theatre criticism. All of the opinion, none of the context. The Stage couldn’t know her budget or how long she was employed or what she had time to look at.

You have to have a perspective, an area of expertise, an opinion. I’ve hauled out young actors before for refusing to have an opinion. If it’s all beige, that just makes your work beige. But fuck. Of all the people for them to have been mean about… #stagerage

An old friend from school said this evening “you’re a writer, why don’t you go into theatre criticism?” I told them that if I was honest I’d lose friends, and if I was dishonest I’d lose integrity.

But if I was writing about this show I’d be all for it. It’s a glorious show. “Alexander Barclay and JimJack Witham were wonderful as Scrodge and Merlay. Considering the constraints the design was superb. Everybody is working really fucking hard to make this land. Five stars. ”