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My little cottage is like an oven. It smells of laundry. There are sheets and clothes hanging everywhere. Before the matinee tomorrow I’ll need to fold and hang what I can. But I’ll likely also need at least a month in the loo as I’ve just had a late night curry from Thespians that was hotter than Wolf Rayet WR-102. I won’t regret it. Everything is an experience.

Joey was in unexpectedly and I wanted to be in his energetic space a moment to remember. He momentarily lived in Chelsea at mine and specialises in being mercurial. He makes music with Maddy – The Amazing Devil. Listen to them as albums when you have time. Trust me on that. I was curious to discover what time has done to him and was pleased to see his light is burning brightly still, and more positive than last time I saw him. I think he knows the darkness too, as we all must. He loved the show. How can you not unless you’re one of these fumbling old perverts they sent to write about it? I went for a single Guinness in the duck to find him before I fucked off home to burn my entire face off in the fiery storm of chicken naga that is now fully consumed, mopped up with nan, drawing its plans against me.

I love this little bubble, and I love Tim for trusting me into it. It’s happy here and we care about each other and the show. We are lightly making magic for each other, with each other and for the people who come. So many school groups. And really vocal audiences that get it and get behind us in it. I insult the reviewers because frankly the old duffers deserve it, they’re the only dark spot on a bright bright thing, and actually many have been very positive. I just wish the quickest ones hadn’t been neutral. Small thing to worry about in the face of what we are weaving.

It’s a hard play, and a sad play. It deals with really dark and thorny things that are so relevant now. Racism, misogyny, violence, misinformation. We do the words and honour the writer. We don’t show off about how clever we are, we just let the text speak instead. The craft of it is in stillness and clarity instead of tricks and choreography. A play like this lands best if we don’t block it. Dead people stand up, spoiler alert, but that’s no more of an unattural choice than someone trying to lie completely still but they’re still breathing and you know it. Corpses in a room are much much bigger and weirder than an actor trying not to blink or shuffle.

Rhys was momentarily up in town, on our stage with the Twelfth Night cast which will be in next, just, as a company, learning how important good voice work is within this space. He knows it of course, he’s been up a few times. But it’s useful to bring it to everyone. You have to be clear without pushing. It’s a balance as there are people right in front of you and others miles away above and behind you. It’s powerful to get used to it in rehearsal before you get into tech. I saw him briefly after a lovely snatched walk down the river to feed the swans with Georgina.

My niece… I think she’s pushing 18 now … she’s in the last year at school and they are doing Othello. If you like seeing women strangled like some of our reviewers this isn’t your Othello. If you’re studying it though it’s perfect, because there’s very little between us and the text. Bless her English teacher, when she discovered Catherine’s uncle was in it she booked a school trip. The school is within the M25. They had over two hours drive either way. And fourteen girls came to the matinee today.

I wasn’t sure what the protocol was, but I figured it was only going to add value to invite them all backstage after. I’m thrilled to be here, maybe some of my excitement will rub off on a new generation. I had to sign them all in at stage door for fire insurance and then gave them the basics. There are tour guides in the building doing everything much better than me, but I could basically take them through one person’s show. Lou has had it before. “Here’s the wall of names, here’s the sound booth, here’s the quick change, that box is full of swords, here’s the secret tarting yourself up area, and here’s an entrance point to the stage. Isn’t it big! Any of you want to be an actor?” *silence* Well done that lot. “Sensible.” So I took questions. Perhaps unsurprisingly we discovered my version of “How do you learn all the lines?” “Well the glib answer is that it’s my job, but in terms of how we do it, I learn the structure of the thoughts first and then fine tune with how the author put them. The show they came to was captioned, our first captioned show, but that meant there was a display with the actual words we were supposed to be speaking. I had a clean show but was perfectly happy to say “I expect at some point someone said things that weren’t quite what was written, but if you hadn’t been following you wouldn’t have noticed?” That was one for the hyperlexic kids like me and Lou, and there was recognition. “We always know where we are in the thought process, so we can’t really get too lost.”

Apparently the experience met with approval. I have been anointed by her classmates with “Cool uncle” which is infinitely better than many of the adjectives that traditionally come before uncle. For me it was lovely to share this with an up and coming generation. They’ll all be positively disposed towards the RSC now, so it’s ambassadorial work for this industry that I still somehow love despite the bruises.

Off to bed now. Nothing in the morning so I can chill until half eleven when I’ve got a free singing lesson from Jox. He just opened up the shop. I’m tempted to do something similar for woowoo. I’ll do some tarot and cleansing for anyone who fancies it. I’m just terrible at scheduling and also won’t do that kind of work unless I know I’m relatively uncluttered myself. I’m never completely uncluttered, the clutter comes with the package. But there are degrees. I’m pretty clear right now though. I have to be. Channeling every night.

I was honestly planning to take it easy this evening. I knew there was a company drinks thing planned. I knew it had been catalysed by one of my closest friends in this company and then hosted by another. It is worth a moment for me to stop and think about how absurdly fortunate I am to be in a company numbering more than two in terms of these long term close friends. Claire, Jethro, Maddy, Scott, Jono … then new friends but right at the core of this work are five people who have been deep deep into who I am for so long that it no longer matters how and when we met.

I didn’t want to go to the drinks. I had my curmudgeon hat firmly attached. Evening show off? I shall munch thumb and scratch bum. How dare you make me go and be convivial? Oh very well then.

It’s ten to three. I’m downstairs on my sofa. We all just walked home, the four of us not in Avonside. I put the heating on earlier so my cottage is toasty. I think we needed an expression of togetherness unrelated to the show. We are just past halfway. It’s good to have a moment to gather before we push to the end. There’s solidity and love in this company. We all see what each other are bringing and we all enjoy the curiosity of difference. It’s rare to find a team so bonded.

I’m gonna cook something, even if it’s just eggs. I know its late but my eating habits are largely targeted to post show and as a result I’ve only really eaten some cheese today. I avoided my vitamins before the matinee, as I knew my tummy was empty. I had some remarkable marmite crackers courtesy of Georgina, and used them on camembert from Ricardo. But largely I’m still hungry, and tired as well, but I’m gonna force awakeness until I’ve got a thing in me just because it feels correct.

I’ll slap up a lunch before the show tomorrow, trust me. I’m just still settling into a discovery of patterns that work for me. I haven’t lost my appetite for fear of election results over the pond, that would be madness. Why would I be worried about things so far away to the extent that I can barely stop fidgeting. It’s all going to be fine. la la la la la.

Eggs. That’s the ticket. Nice eggs. Yum yum. Tasty nice quick eggs and then sleep. Everything fine and happy. Happy and good. Yes yes yes.

This is terrifying. The whole world is watching. I feel sick.

I’m in bed. It’s barely half past nine. Normally at about now I’d be appalled at the shower of shit in Cyprus. “We are gonna lose this island to the Turks,” I’d be thinking.  I’ll give the heavy lifting to Gratiano, three corpses to dispose of and all that. I’ll make sure Iago is nine years a’killing. And I’ll fuck off home to tell Dukey what I’ve arbitrated before I go back to Constantinople and my brother the Emperor, if he can be fucked to listen which he won’t be.

Cyprus was only held by the Republic of Venice for a short time. This play details the end of that short time, and concludes with my character installing an injured governor who is a bad drunk. He speaks last which is my only true signal that he’s higher status than the Duke. But he must be. It needn’t matter though. I just need to show up and speak. It’s a lovely part to play even if I have to really keep myself warm and alert longer than any other character, so it’s normally a really late night by the time I’ve eaten my adrenaline.

I sent a self tape today. A Paxman type, but in the seventies so hopefully the beard will fly. Ally did it with me in exchange for a bathroom door handle. I didn’t want to spend too much time on it, really so we just did it and then sent it. It’s one line. I’ll either get it or I won’t and the decision will be about the cut of my jib and not the nuance of my delivery.

I’m happy to seed things into the future. One line in a thing? Yep, sure. That’s an easy tape, and the casting director is good enough that it won’t be a flood of options. It’s mine to lose, largely. Fingers crossed my tired but willing involvement will be enough because these relationships are at the heart of everything we do.

I’ve been slow writing this blog as it is interspersed with messages on WhatsApp. It’s ten. I’m seriously thinking of putting myself into torpor before I would normally put out my final couplet, and try and serve up the word “relate” like it is the beginning of a whole load more. Bed bed bed. I’ll go turn off the heating. I had a really gorgeous expensive dinner courtesy of Lambs of Sheep Street. I’m feeling warm, full, happy and excited. Three more weeks, and it can only continue to deepen with such a company. So much to look forward to.

1:08am. I just heated and consumed a vast bowl of pasta with pesto and cheese. Easy as pie, tasty and bulky. I can’t go straight to sleep though or I’ll be back at dreamwar. I’ve switched the heating off so it’ll be cooler soon and I’ve opened the bottle of port my agent sent me for press night. A digestif, a bit of cold air, and then a cup of camomile. I’ll go to bed at 2 I reckon, and the cold air always makes for less involved dreams. It’s been a full week both in life and out of it. The dreams have been a little too vigorous. In the matinee today I saw two of everyone. One company member took two shows off for Black Dog. This dark time of year, and even though the company is BRIGHT we are still raked by the claws of Skadi. It’s hard not to notice the early dark.

If you know me you will know how I sometimes just forget to eat. I had a bad patch of it just now where I had nothing but a small bowl of lentil soup in two days and didn’t notice. Often I start trembling and realise, but this time I just got on with it and took a huge cup full of vitamins at the top of the matinee on a completely empty stomach. I sang the opening song and the Mesonikticon – “That was the best entry you’ve done,” said Jox. By the time we got to Orthos I was feeling weird. Got the timing nice on it anyway, yes I know this means nothing to you. Then I went up to my dressing room and yarked an empty stomach full of pills into the sink. Not much to report really, just froth and acid. I have time in the show after Orthos so I had a shower so Lodo wasn’t puffy faced. Then I lay on the floor a bit. Some of the dressing rooms have beds. Ours doesn’t. Confound it.

It was a good matinee for me considering, but that’s my malaise – the work sits on top of everything else. I have to put it there so I do. All the rest was timing, maybe I didn’t need to be sick but I felt it brewing and made the call that it was better when I had time for a shower than when I was on stage in my gold costume. “The duke and senators of Venice greet youaaarrrrgggh”. Nobody is gonna walk barefoot to Palestine for that.

A mushroom risotto from “have you got any allergies” Carluccios (four times today I was asked, thrice by the same person). Then another show, grounded by the mushrooms. Such a warm house. They all stood up at the end. We could barely do that. We are all so tired. It was a very much needed validation.

Half one. I’m slow tonight. I’m gonna see what happens if I close my eyes and lie my head on this pillow. I barely touched the port but considering the day I’ve had there’s a reason for that. Fortnums from lovely Esta, she’s incredible, thank God for her. Self tape tomorrow for a one liner in a nice thing. Bring it. Three more weeks here and then I need to know what’s coming. eek

Understudy run this afternoon. What a treat. But for a bit of singing I mostly got to watch the show with full tech and just a different load of actors. Scott tore it up as Iago. Kevin was wonderful and clear as Othello. Claire in two parts including Emilia and I welled up watching her being brilliant. Maddy too, just a delight as Desdemona. This play has existed for so long, and these characters are mantles that different actors will wear in different ways. Graham was on as Montano and Lodovico, and it was unusual sitting up in the circle and watching the scene before my first entrance, feeling all the build of adrenaline and a strange sense of otherness about the fact I wasn’t waiting in the wings. He was elegant and bright and at one point in particular he threw up the end of a line in such a way as to make me want to remember to do it myself.

They cut fifteen minutes off the run time. That’s a lot of dropped cues and wallowing. I’m hitting the gas as much as possible but mayhaps we all need to be doing that, not least so we can get to the pub quicker.

My godson is in tonight with his parents and his sister. Perfect timing, they’ve booked an overnight stay. I might even get to have breakfast with them tomorrow. This is why I’m writing now as I listen to the bit of play I’m not in. Otherwise I’ll come to it knackered post show. Better scattered and adrenalised than tired and wanting to go to sleep.

I’m so proud of the covers today. There’s a young Guildhall lad, the last year of the teachers who taught so many people still flying in the industry. He was rock solid, as was everyone.

Back to a normal show, and then two more and I’m very much feeling the need for a weekend off right now even though I’m not understudying. Friends have been wonderful though, so many coming to see what I’m up to, what I’m proud of. It’s a good watch, it’s a thorny watch. It’s a grown up watch, so I’m curious to see what Hal takes from it.

Time to go sing “Logos Ponerias”.

I’ve made a bed for Nadia. When I used to go and hang with Minnie they didn’t have these sofa beds. I remember me and Ed Dick freezing to fuckery on two separate lines of cushions. The sofa beds are a great addition to these Waterside cottages. Michelle and I pulled the plastic off the mattress last night. Michelle brings her house on her back so I didn’t need to consider her comfort outside of opening space for her. Nadia has come without a huge and exquisitely refined backpack. She needs a bed. Lou and I have made one.

I love my patchwork quilt. It is the most eloquent present I’ve ever received. It was a rush job and half the material she ordered hadn’t arrived. She had one square of fabric showing the arse of a jaguar, and the rest of it showed way too late. But all the squares have meaning, and the colour shift is all thought through and honestly, people, if you aren’t in the market for an excellent Ayurvedic massage in Ditchling I can hook you up with a quilt just so long as you can pay what it’s worth. I still get lost in mine, and I like that the jaguar is hiding. That’s art imitating life. It’s an incredible piece of work. Somehow I’ve managed to seduce or be seduced by a genius.

Two shows today and I’m properly starting to appreciate the long run. Every show, we can tighten and deepen. Sure, within that there’s the devil telling us to indulge and spread out. But if we keep our eyes on the play and the pace then we can sharpen and sharpen. We are still wallowing at points, and it’s interesting to observe the moments of wallow and to see how quickly the audience gets bored of self indulgence even if we feel within the plot that it is totally justified. We have to keep it moving forward ever forward. My character is momentum though. He has to cut through all the horrors of the play and solve things. “I can solve this,” is a game of Tim’s and it’s something I say repeatedly to myself before I walk on and surprise myself with my final entrance. It’s all I can do not to say “solved” when I’ve finished my final couplet.

We are all so ridiculously happy up here, this company. Tim is a great director for curious actors. We’re all able to express, we all love each other very much, we feel just as it ought to feel in an acting company – a non hierarchical mess of creative fools expressing themselves as best they can. I don’t think I’m the only person who feels this is a special company. The tired reviews from people who are already dead just add to that. I think they all thought it would be raved about and wanted to be the clever one who didn’t rave. Bunch of animated farts. It’s a powerful thing this thing. I’m a small part of a wonderful telling of a strange sad tale.

Michelle is engaged in a wonder wander. She’s been at it for a long time. She walks with a huge backpack. She camps at dusk, breaks camp at dawn. Those of you that followed my Camino, she was the ship. She was steady. I would normally pass her at about ten in the morning, four hours in, and then she would happen at wherever I had stopped about an hour after my 3pm stop. She walked with inevitability. We made friends over laundry and eye drops. I was still pretty new with contact lenses back then and I think I coerced her into squirting liquid into my eye as I lay on a picnic table in the middle of nowhere on our first meeting.

She’s here now to walk The West Highland Way, but she’s broken her journey in Stratford just to see this guy she met on the path as he does what he set out to do. My random life has really borne out in this job. The fact that the friendships I’ve happened into are rarely just about the bit where we make ourselves part of the story… it’s probably healthy. I’m happy to give her a sofa bed and a hot shower and to share this cottage with her. We have experienced some seriously basic albergues together on the occasions it wasn’t practical to camp. She was one of the lucky pilgrims who had my donation funded stay at a four person Airbnb where we could cook vegan food, courtesy of a reader of this very blog. Thank you. We have been geeking out about Shikoku. And she came to the show.

Turns out I can get house seats on the day if it isn’t sold out. She paid twenty quid for a doozy. We went to The Duck after and then chewed the fat back here, and she will get to christen the sofa bed after my punchy sabotage friend slept in the car.

I’m thrilled Michelle took the time to come here and witness this part of my journey. We have both been covering ground, converting energy, shifting. She found a dime in her pocket and knew it was her dead mother talking to her, and she told the tale to Jethro and I. By my left elbow as I write is a glass jar with a 2p piece in it that represents the entirety of creation, so long as you were there when Jethro and I took the universe apart and rebuilt it. Emblems like coins carry history and weight, and can be filled with all sorts of energy. If we like to work with these things, they are easy if random launch points.

We need to move the bundle downstairs.

How the fuck have I picked up so many glorious humans? This acting company is impossibly glorious, and then people like Michelle come as audience and help me understand that all these weird choices I’ve made have created some sort of a delightful web that makes sense. Tim made a ritual. This is a human show, as clear as clear. I’m so very proud of it.

There goes Lou, and with her the ease of self care. I’ll have to try and maintain it without her now.

The circle was broken a touch tonight. Fin couldn’t do the show. One of us, and the youngest in the acting company. He’s a Guildhall boy so I’m invested. He has big understudy commitments. He hopefully just had a wobble, but Johan did his lines tonight and we all realised practically how, if we are indisposed, someone is ready to step in and be brilliant. The show goes on. It was here with this company that Ed came on for David Tennant as Hamlet on PRESS NIGHT. The understudy thing is well carried and the understudies are well chosen, but this is a stressful time for them as they often have multiple parts. They’ll be understudying AFTLS stylee, when they have to talk to each other etc. I had to fight myself as Toby Belch / Antonio a few years ago and found it joyful despite having to hoof oxygen out of cans in Colorado. There’s delight in admitting the craft of it. But… it’s a hard thing to do.

With one actor down, the goblins got in through the gap. We could have held the space but maybe we forgot for a moment. The gold wall went to fuck and there was a show stop. This is when our glorious Cat has to go on stage and talk to the audience. We had a bit of juggling, the interval was shifted, and John is a consummate pro and just adapted. Apparently The New Real had a show stop as well that was so extreme they had to cancel. Christ… At least we can play Othello in an empty space. The tech is just happening because it can. There’s nothing necessary in the tech. We could tell it in a cardboard box. But we forgot to hold the space.

I’m sure our brother will be well. It’s sad and strange to have a gap. We did the show, but the air was pissing out the side of our bouncy castle until we noticed and stuck tape over it.

Bedtime now. I’d have been asleep hours already if Lou was here. I can’t keep my eyes open.

Two days off, and both with Lou. We decided to do as little as possible today and just nest in our little cottage, so inevitably we drove up to Dover Hill and looked at the sheep. It’s all terrifically Cotswolds up there and was a good chance for me to speak the little niggly things that mean nothing but magnify when you are making a nebulous creative thing with many people and you all care about it but you are all very different. Things like the bundle are polarising because everyone has a very different eye on magic and more people are proud to be rational and know it’s all bollocks than the hopeful fools who trust that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

An hour or so of wind and damp, sheep shit and grass, benches and flies. Screaming children. Gorgeous but for that and a blowthrough is sometimes all a man needs to wind down.

We went to Chipping Campden on the way home which looks like it has been built in one feverish weekend by a child giant with a bucket on the beach. Pictures of Withnail all over it, that actor’s cautionary tale, very alive in the local imagination. I was wearing a long coat yesterday and it was enough for someone to shout “Oy, Withnail!” at me. Oh I hope not. Charming and magnetic, I’ll buy that great yes fine, but Vivian Mackerrell was dead at 51. I expect bits of it were shot round here… If not it’s just the wine shop owner being a fan. “We want the finest wines available to humanity…” etc. So do I, yes, but in moderation perhaps?

Anyway we are back in our little cottage now. We ordered a vast spread of curry from Simla – loads of great veggie options, delivered fast. Now we are listening to om shanti music to keep in with Lou’s mild obsession with India, and to gear up for a massage exchange in which I’m gonna get the best deal as she’s a trained Ayurvedic masseur and I’m just an enthusiastic dude with two hands.

Dark now. The hour is upon us. The winter has snuck up and soon it’ll be a month and a half of Christmas again, get ready for the onslaught.