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One more week of evenings in the van and it’s starting to be really lovely now. We are ticking over nicely and people seem to enjoy it. I’m certainly having a whale of a time. But the van is getting quite disordered.

My character is mixing hallucinogens, and unsure of his location in space or time, but very happy if a bit confused. It works as a catch all, as I frequently have to set up very quickly and get started on an evening of shows. Things get lost. I am currently convinced that a particular audience member nicked my pack of smokeless incense, but I’m also just as aware of the possibility that it’s going to show up buried somewhere. I’m holding off cursing her with boils until I’ve made absolutely certain it’s not in a pile of random stuff.

I could never live on a narrowboat, no matter how much I like being on the things when they belong to someone else. Working in this van has been a trial by fire. I can barely keep my area in order. I’ve created a marquis who is so confused and schizophrenic that it’s legit for me to lose things. But I keep bringing interesting stuff into the van  in case I want to give it away to audience members.

My key fell out of my pocket during a show last night, and I was extremely lucky that my nephew had slept through the departure time of his megabus, or I would never have got home to sleep yesterday. I gave him £50 for a plane back up to Aberdeen as it’s not about spending 13 hours in a bus, no matter how you try and style it out that it gives you time to work or think or whatever. He’s next door right now trying to stay awake as he had to leave about 3. I was about to crash when I remembered I haven’t written this yet. I’m often so chilled out after an evening in the van that I forget this. But I appear to have a last second impulse that kicks me out of the slumberdrift and into making words on my phone with one eye open.

Full time rehearsal in the day with no evening shows for the next two days, and then it’s busy busy logistical nightmare time until the 8th. I’m going to close the other eye and drift away. This week will be lovely, but complete. I’m going to get my beauty sleep. In my terrifying onesie…

There I was, enjoying my lazy morning. Me and Pickle snoozing. Contemplating getting up for coffee when a private number rings me. I don’t answer. Probably a cold caller. They leave a message.

“Hi Al, where are you? We are expecting you at work today.”

Fuck. So much for a recalibrate. I knew there was something picking at the edges of my memory last night as I went to sleep.

One of my ticking over jobs. Invigilating. Low down my list of priorities and with the acting work bearing fruit at the moment, almost completely forgotten. They’ve also recently switched to online payslips only, and I literally have no idea how to lodge them, thus I’m not even seeing any financial effect despite my hours in work. I should work that out, and hopefully they’ll be game to allow back-payments. Anyway, I had to blow half an hour’s wage in an uber, and arrived shirt untucked with two scarves and bleary eyes just in time to sit here in this stark ventilated room, under the cameras.

And that’s it. There is only one person taking the exam in this room. He’s an extra time candidate, probably doing a retake considering its a Saturday. When I have lines to learn this is a great job as I can roll them round in my head as I sit in a concentrated room, so long as I don’t accidentally leak spoken words. Right now I don’t have anything to learn but for extra parts in Macbeth for The Factory, and I think I’m doing another exam in the afternoon. I haven’t got my Macbeth cut script or I’d drill in Malcolm.

It’s at least peaceful here. And concentrated. I can write an early blog and then wind down this evening after the show. All I’m doing on Sunday before the show is lunch.

Macbeth is on tonight but I’m not in the squad because of Pantechnicon. Loads of my friends are going to the Castle Climbing Centre to play it in what will prove to be a very unusual space, and to a sold out audience. It’s good to see the squad is back online and punching. It’s a very exciting show and company to be part of and I strongly suspect that this climbing Macbeth will signal the return of the old regular Sunday shows in unusual places that formed an operational core of the company when we were regularly swinging.

So it’s busy. If things go according to plan, there’s a lovely warm gig on the horizon (NDA and carrying an interesting selection of bloggy difficulties, but I’ll find a way even if it’s just book reviews for a few weeks).

I’m rehearsing daytimes, performing evenings, and have a lovely Factory squad I can drop into so long as I’m up to date with my homework. This invigilating dayjob seems less and less relevant to the way in which I turn my time into money now. I’ve seen a few dayjobs come and go over the decades. I’m wondering if this one still serves the me that has emerged after walking Camino. I think it might just be a time sink. Roll on the lucky phone call…

I just got home and I’m crashing hard. The last few days have provided much that was lovely, but precious little time to stop and recalibrate. I woke up this morning and fought through the rain to a remarkable and historic hotel in the heart of London. I had left my card at home, and successfully made my first foray into mobile phone payments for public transport. We were on a scout. I’m involved in a company of actors who will be doing a lovely thing there before long. I arrived flustered having been unable to buy myself the requisite morning coffee. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a free coffee?” I asked someone. There was and it came on a silver tray. “That would normally cost £7” Brian tells me by text. Good to know. In the state I was in this morning it would’ve been worth it.

After a morning of sorting logistics and thinking about these interesting spaces we are going to be playing we went back to the rehearsal room and ran the play. It’s a beautiful piece, and gets me every time. My part in it is currently pretty small, but as the director said “We’ll work out the immersive content on Monday and Tuesday.” That’ll be when I come in to play.

Rehearsal finished at half five. Then I had to rush home to get the van and roll it in to Waterloo. We weren’t ready to play a show when we opened, but good humoured audience members allowed me to run around and get the cups from the cab, and my very dissipated and confused character allowed me to cope with the fact that nothing was where I needed it to be inside the van for the first hour of working.

We had a good intake throughout the night, capped at 10.30 by some excellent friends made at Wilderness Festival, who booked out the van and would’ve made it a party all night if tech didn’t show up to unplug us almost immediately the show ended.

It being February I went for a beer with them afterwards, and God I’m feeling it now. I only had one pint, as I knew I’d be rolling home, but now I’m home and the duty is discharged it’s rolling through my system, slamming me hard towards bed. I won’t need any more. After a month dry I’m a super cheap date.

I’ll probably drink a pint of water and pass out momentarily. Tomorrow morning there’s time to chill. I’ve got nothing apart from Pantechnicon in the evening tomorrow. I’m going to stay home, eat healthy food, feed the cat properly and wind this last week out of myself while building content and storing energy for another long week next week.

Fun to be so busy. More please! 🙂

There we all were, far too early in the morning at Waterloo, getting out of London around the same time that most people were getting in. The concourse was thick with rage as people tutted actively about momentary obstructions on the way to their little workboxes. We very nearly missed the train out to some place near Southampton. Five of us. Heading to a green screen. This is what I do for a living.

After an hour and twenty in the train I’m in Barry’s merc. I take the front seat. Barry and I get talking, but I’m in work mode. I’m quick to suggest I’ll send him my voicereel, as he is an active spirit and is clearly making lots of interesting things. They’ll need their “poor man’s Cumberbatch” voice before long so I’ll lodge it with them while I can, dammit.

We are disgorged at the studio. An old stable, surrounded by green, packed with working people. Coffee and strategy. Then hair and make-up. They always make you look great for camera. Even me. It’s like a little holiday from my base entropic state. Mariana works witchcraft with powders and creams and sprays and then it’s in front of the camera.

A shoot like this is about short term muscle memory. A series of gestures, in a sort of pattern. There’s no sound being recorded so you find your own logic, aided or hindered by Ed Wood style narration from various sources, (sometimes inside your own head). In essence it’s very like learning the steps for a really weird dance and then processing it quickly from mechanical reiteration to something with logical bridges and a sense. It’s seeking the moment where “step ball change, JAZZ HANDS” starts to feel like an organic part of a conversation in world. Patterning meaning into gesture into meaning.

They’ve booked a huge amount of crisis time into the schedule. At one point I sharpie the front of my shirt trying to work out how to magically open a book and get a pen lid off without three hands, and fudging the open pen into myself. While one of us establishes that the mark cleans out satisfactorily with a baby wipe – (he’s got kids) – someone else is already halfway to Southampton buying an ultimately redundant replacement shirt in Zara. Still we finish a good hour ahead of time. We bundle into the train back home before the snow and in time for the show.

I have a friend on standby to do my part in case the shoot drags. I’m happy to let her off the hook.

Showtime tonight, and hellfire it was cold. I didn’t want to leave the door open, and the volunteers were out there smashing it and making it clear that people can come into our rather strange but joyful van of tea and tarot. I tried to get tea to them in the breaks. I’ve got headspace during the show now for acts of thoughtfulness, which is just as well as West Side Story rehearsals go full time from tomorrow so there’s no more time for anything other than getting on with it in the evenings for the next few weeks. I’m also starting to find the joy and the logic with The Marquis. Learning the steps of the dance. Jazz hands!

Another week at Vault. Today I experimented with getting in after congestion charging finishes. This mostly involved driving around the great big roundabout at Vauxhall at 10mph, avoiding potholes and listening to radio 4 until they played the chimes of Big Ben. Then I was crawling past the ambulances and rush hour traffic until I could swing down Leake Street praying that there isn’t a tagger in our spot and hoping we can find Rich in time to sling cables over our roof and get us power.

Last week we were parked in the smoking area, which was brilliant for passing trade. This week they’ve moved the smoking area and surrounded us with barriers, almost as if they don’t want people walking up. Plus I realised today that they’ve kept one ticket back for last minute VIPs on every single show, which means that with four tickets on sale per show that’s a quarter of our tickets offline. That sort of thing makes sense if there are lots of tickets, but it’s a bit shit if there’s only 4 available per half hour.

It was slow at the start, being a Wednesday,  and these are the sort of things that occur to me when I’m debating how to get more bums on seats. Marketing it a little bit would’ve been smart. Anyone who has a mailing list of people who like eccentric spiritual theatre stuff do send it out, as we’ve only got a few seats to fill but it’s good to fill them. It’s lovely doing this show – the audience makes it, and even though it’s lovely chilling in here with the snake and ragtime music it’s more fun chilling with you guys. We had six people bundle in at once at 8pm though, so lost our break, and I don’t think most of them paid for it. The box office volunteers are helpful but they’re volunteers, and the one tonight was new. I hope karma comes back to us even if money doesn’t. But both would be the best result!

I’ve had a very full day and the show has helped me wind down. It’s rare you can say that about doing a show. Usually I end up wired afterwards. But it’s lovely. I get to just hang out with people.

The day started rehearsing West Side Story in the upstairs room of a West End theatre with friends. Then I went to a workshop audition in the upstairs room of a different West End theatre with different friends – that’s always going to be a kick of adrenaline, auditioning, and it was compounded by mainlining a shit-ton of coffee beforehand. An hour and a half later I was still wired, gibbering in the cab of the van while spinning around a roundabout about six times at the helm of a van full of precarious furniture.

Now I’m heading home in a bus, freezing my ass off. I realised I had to leave my costume in the van to be able to get it in time for the show after filming, so I’m heading home dressed in whatever tufts of clothing I’ve scattered in my wake over the course of van shows past. Another lovely day. Another lovely load of shows. I’m dreaming of a hot bath.

In a day or so I’ll be doing a website shoot. One of those jobs that blurs the line between actor and model. Way back before Guildhall I was with a modelling agent so this is a familiar context. Back then I used to spend money on expensive facials and stuff before auditions. The problem with that is, if you get the job you think you have to get the facial every time you audition. If you don’t get it then you feel you’ve wasted your money – and people ask for a lot of money for a bit of cream. I stopped doing it because I started getting jobs after just rocking up hairy in my boots. I decided it was an unnecessary luxury.

Today, though, I had a facial. And a haircut. And a beard trim. And a manicure. On the client. That’s feature film treatment again. But it’s an unusual circumstance.

My modelling agent back in the nineties taught me something very helpful. It has won me lots of commercials. “You can act darling. The director will be pleased to see you audition. But if the client doesn’t think you’re on brand he’ll block you. Research the brand. Wear their colours. Use their buzzwords casually. If you don’t overdo it then you’ve maximised your chances. Then you just have to do a good audition.” She was right. I’ve ticked over with commercials and corporates over the decades. It’s not the process driven work that feeds my heart, but it can be fun and it butters the crumpets.

This approaching shoot is a website shoot for a company where the business owner is a friend of mine. He’s the “client” and he wants me on board. Saves them booking time off and renting studios for auditions. It makes sense too, using me for this, or I’d have stopped him by now. I’m on brand. Butter for the crumpets ahoy! And because we’re mates and he wants me looking good, so he booked me into a salon and I got all the treatments I had long since deprioritised as “expensive luxury.” Legend.

I have cute cuticles. Manly soft hands. I’ve had a man-facial, which is like a facial but it’s black and it smells of Man Stuff for menmen. My straggly hair is corralled. My beard is no longer “Hungover Gandalf”. And by chance I’ve got an audition tomorrow for a job that will perfectly slot in after Vault is finished. So for free I’ll make a good impression, unless they only wanted me for my wildman beard in which case there’s plenty of time to grow it back. Although if I get the gig then I’ll have to fight the superstition that it was the treatment that clinched it. That could be an expensive pattern to get into. The bill made my eyes water more than any of the smelly things he put on my face. I could’ve gone to my Barber in Camden six times for that. Although he wouldn’t have given me free shortbread.

I love a Monday day off. Today was a lesson in idleness. If Shama hadn’t persuaded me to come with her to Ashtanga yoga I wouldn’t have left the house. I didn’t even get out of bed until noon.

I made a couple of phone calls, booked an audition and had about a gallon of coffee. I watched a few episodes of The Good Place, ate crumpets, played FTL and read. At one point I halfheartedly messaged someone about voicereel stuff. At another I had some sausages and beans. Right up until I walked in the door of the studio I was coming up with reasons why I didn’t want to do Ashtanga. I don’t want to spend the money, it’s cold, I’ve never done Ashtanga before so I might not like it especially if it’s one of those ones that try to make you restrict your breath.

It wasn’t. It was mostly familiar from other yogas that I’ve dropped in and out of over the years. I was late, but Shama somehow contrived to be later.

The studio was in London bridge in an old tanners yard that has been converted into hipster offices in containers with bits of steel and wood jagging around signalling “cool” to people as they sick out their lives into offices. It’s a good studio. Wooden floors, but smelling of wood not feet. Lots of airflow. The woman next to me was extremely flexible so I was cribbing off her but not going so deep. I managed to achieve the headstand, thanks to Guildhall all those years ago. Some things stay in the body. God I could use three years of training like that again for my body. Going back to yoga is helpful, but in some of the inverted poses I caught sight of my belly and groaned. There’s a lot of work to do, and a lot of pies to avoid. Camino and dry January is helping but regular stuff like this is the key. And it’s hard to get motivated every … single … time.

I then went home through the chill, cocooned into bed, read a bit, and then got into bed, switched the light off, cuddled up with Pickle and started to drift off before uttering the word “fuck”, rolling over, grabbing my phone and writing this. It’s 3.13am. I’m not rehearsing tomorrow thankfully. Just grooming, cleaning out the van and sending invoices. But I can tell from the screaming of the vixens in the park over the river that it’s the dead of night. I should be asleep. I will be momentarily. That’ll do… Monday. Actor’s weekend. I can write a short one with one eye open. Back to cocooning in bed with a small cat. Zzzzz

Vault Festival launch partAY! I realised that I’m not very good at going to thumping great big parties without booze assistance. “She’s totally hitting on you,” says Tim when she goes to the loo. “Hmm?” I’ve been looking at the door feeling unbelievably sober. I’m not sure she was, really. She was tanked enough that she could’ve mistaken me for a cute puppy.

I get into lots of conversations. There were many different words in people’s sentences, but if you spoke no English you might think they were just saying one extremely long word. I think I got out of work too late. It was already that time of night where the conversations get circular by the time I started.

Our little van has been the chill out area, but also we don’t close until 11. You get nice smokey things and stuff that smells good and a cup of tea and maybe some whisky and so forth. I’d just spent a few hours there having lovely conversations with people, still wearing my kilt “It was Burns’s Night last night but I haven’t slept yet so for me it still is Burns’s Night. Whisky?” Coincidence has it that I have two identical flasks so I can fill one with whisky and then down water from the other one and not break dry January, plus drive the van home without causing death and wrecking the show. But it was hard not to drink in that party. “Oh go on, have a drink,” said many people. And it was tempting. The music volume was high. There wasn’t much else to do but stand in groups and shout at people or dance crowded. A little bit to take the volume down, file the edges off, make the body floppy.

I said my long goodbyes and drove home. Five more minutes and I’d have had to have that beer. The van was still parked in the tunnel, and by some remarkable coincidence it hadn’t been tagged. I’ve been working hard to be accommodating to the guys who come and spray in there. Pissing them off might prove expensive, although it’s tempting to show one of them the blank side of the van and say “This is the vibe we’re after.” It’s not my van though. It belongs to a company who is renting it to Phil Grainger and I’m using it while he’s touring all over the beautiful hot places in the world with his clarion voice and his Orpheus show.

I now know every bump in the road on the drive home. Every sewer grate, pothole and unpredictable traffic light. Every sharp ascent. There’s an upright slightly top-heavy wardrobe in the back of the van, an urn full of water, shelves, clocks and Mel’s extensive collection of alligator bits, skulls and mystical gewgaws most of which are left on a parcel shelf four feet up and housed in glass cases. I crawl along the streets at night at 20mph, weaving around in the road to avoid the bumpy bits. The lines of cars behind me must be convinced that I’m drunk. I’m convinced I’m drunk. We were hoping we could wrap the van in pallet wrap and leave it in the tunnel for the duration, but it’s not to be. Likely it’d get tagged so it’s for the best.

This is why I do this sort of thing.

This evening was a validation of my quest for joy. I arrived at the van very much not in the right headspace. I had driven in, realised I’d left all the cups at home. Disaster! One can’t take tea without cups. Heavens to Betsy!

The van was already wired for power, and the tunnel was too crowded to reverse up. I had to get a black cab back to get the things in time for the show. We got stuck in traffic, and I ended up having to get involved in a scheduled video conference call using unfamiliar software on the line to M&C Saatchi about creative things related to a spot of lovely work I have coming up. I’ve never spoken to these people before. There are police sirens blaring past the window, the cabbie making conversation, me having to pay him on arrival. So much for my plan.

I wanted to have taken the call whilst reclining in a chaiselongue inside the van interior we built. Maybe some lights, a cigar, a silk robe. “Ahh I’m the talent. You find me at rest. How are you my darlings.” No such luck. Black cab, bag of cups, sirens and a geezer who wanted money. Make your first impressions count, kids.

Thankfully the client is a friend and it’s a done deal already, otherwise I’d be filing that with “video audition nightmares”. The creative team are probably worrying about me now which is great as they’ll be double happy when I go to the shoot and turn out to be on it and professional. One of my most fruitful and enduring creative partnerships, with the joy that was Sprite Productions – that started up with them worrying about me when I drove to Yorkshire a day early by mistake, leaving my luggage in London. My work is the bit that works, though. It’s the rest that goes blooey.

I made it back to the van a bit spun out though, knowing in a semi resigned semi amused way what had just occurred. My dear friend was shadowing me on the show as she’ll be covering me when I’m filming for the website, Gods bless her. She’d just given blood. I was halfway through improvising a story about the sexy devil taking my name when she almost passed out, and went home. I always could knock ’em dead.

I went to the loo. In the queue I ran into the eminent theatre critic, who said lovely encouraging things. This is why I love her. I strode back to the truck determined to change my head for a better one.

I’ve got all my mystic stuff in the van. If I can do it for others I can do it for myself. So I chanted the heck out of myself, got stuck into the Palo Santo and Florida Water, and generally cleared out the contents of my head. Then I went out there and got a load of people to come play with me. They did. It was immense fun. The last person in was a thoughtful and very well traveled American man. He completely got it, appreciated what we were doing, had a clearly very emotional tarot reading from Mel, and then sat with me for a good twenty minutes with tea and ceremony before heading back out with the best soundbite be could ask for in terms of a review. “Everything about this is just perfect.” We should put that on the poster…

Get your tickets here.

Spread the word. First weekend of shows coming up! Aaaaaa