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A time for beginnings. Full moon, bright and clear in Aries. The baby of the zodiac. The fire. The ram. Time to say bye bye to old cobwebs.

I’m very happy to have this ram that left its golden fleece celebrated tonight in this hesper – this evening – as we sing hesperinos to a handkerchief.

TC has never struck me as a mystic. But the timings are aligned. And he keeps using the word “ritual” about this story we are making. So yeah, let’s lean into that. The stars are in order. We are beginning our run at a time when the astral light is highlighting the start of the zodiac once more. Round and round we go, in this one, out of this one, in something else, whatever, wherever, Aaaaaaaaa, yay, ping, SCABLUTZZ. It’ll be like that until we manage to arrange it to die in Varanasi which currently is the only option that scares the shit out of me as I’ve got things to do. If I can avoid it I will literally never go to Varanasi, but that’s because I’m not ready to end my karmic cycle. If you die there, as far as I understand, that’s it for the round and round. People go there to die on purpose. They must be so sure that all the ends are closed. I’ve been round and round and round and have no sense that it’ll ever be finished enough for that. If I got booked for a movie lead shooting in Varanasi, no matter how many stunt doubles there were I’d assume it was a setup by the ORDER to bring things back to quiet. Nah. There’s chaos to be sewn, life to be l/o/i/ved – here, right here on this bank and shoal of time.

Othello the character is very Aries. I wanted to dig into the source material, as the Henslows wanted to make money and this Shagspar writer/actor they found was gonna do better if people already knew the story. Back then stories were more central than identities. Now we are swamped in story so we look at the the people making it. “Gerlok Fuck is playing Hamlet! I must attend.” Back then it was “The tale of Capitano Moro is being related in a new more detailed telling than ever before.” Shakespeare took an idiot’s polemic and gave it his unique treatment. He shaped it up as a human story, and arguably recrafted a source material with a bad agenda into a play that shows us step by step how we can trust our way into madness. It isn’t a play that does well with cuts, as the more you lose the harder it is to empathise with his journey, but Iago is so unnervingly bad for so little reason… No wonder lovely Lodovico makes fucking sure that he is not just tortured but kept alive through it for as long as possible.

Two shows today and I’m finally not pushing so much but still on a journey. It’s hard to take the pressure off, finally being here at the RSC. Here’s part of my journey here – apologies, it carries old wounds now dealt with:

I’m happy to be sharing a dressing room with Scott and finally feeling the end of that twenty year old mess of feelings.

I’m very very happy to be here doing this show with these humans. It’s funny how morale can be higher in tragedies. What a glorious group of actors we have, here. No showboaters, no baddies. The morale always trickles down from the top and John is an actor’s actor, as are Will, Juliet and Annie. TC is the gubernator who cares about the ship he’s guiding. James is a musical genius, Spike is Tim’s Lou. A movement director, a physical eye, someone to bring the brain and body together. I’m so proud to be part of this team. With the naiveté of the Aries full moon, I’m gonna put it out there that this can be the START of something glorious. Aries is the start of the zodiac. Here so go. Somewhere things are clicking into place.

Our first two show day tomorrow so I’ll be warming up on stage at half eleven. That’s less than twelve hours from now. Ben was in the house. One of the only Factory members to have actually met Lou so far, and that’s just by coincidence. She was at Glyndebourne with him and I had clocked he might be there. She met him on a staff bus and made him guess who she was going out with. He inevitably reeled through all the glamorous and attractive men in The Factory and eventually got down to me about six months into the interaction, and then covered it by insisting that he associates me more with Guildhall as that’s where we met. Nah. I’m just punching above my weight.

Another show tonight. The tide goes in, the tide goes out. I didn’t feel as aligned as yesterday but I’m still chasing the devil.

Tiny tiny movements magnify and gain significance on stage. There are actors I love when we’ve had to have someone lying on the floor holding their feet in rehearsals to stop them making unnecessary meaningless steps and then they still do it as soon as someone isn’t holding their ankles. It makes the actor feel comfortable but steals their power. I got in command of that one, and the devil immediately shifted up my body.

There are actors I love whose hands twitch with neurotic energy as they work. I got in command of that early too, after making a “withered hand” tension offer playing Richard III at Uni which I then carried into my next few roles as if I could only act if my right hand was clawed. Now my hands are relaxed and I’m not stepping back and forth meaninglessly. So where did the tension go?

Wendy my movement teacher taught me all that time ago that you absolutely have to chase that nervous tension around. You think you’ve moved it in and then it comes back somewhere else. On stage everything you do is magnified with meaning, so the game becomes physical and vocal tension chasing. You squeeze it away from one place, it comes into another.

Right now I’m very very relaxed compared to old me, but there’s a new old devil in the back of my neck I’m chasing. My warm-ups are working on killing it. Once I’ve done that it’ll show up in my eyebrow or my left foot, and round we go again. But this is a long run, and that’ll help me refind all of that complete awareness.

It’s harder work than you’d imagine, this Shakespeare. Thankfully we’ve got resources. A very clear movement and voice team, aligned completely with TC. It’s a rare treat. There’s been nothing but support across the board. This is a damn fine show and I’m a a damn fine small part of it.

And tomorrow we’re doing it twice. So I’ll have to see what it’s like to go to bed now. It’s not yet 1am, but that’s late for people who aren’t on late work.

Downstairs they’ve just arrived in Cyprus. I’m in my Elizabethan jerkin up in the dressing room listening to it on the monitor and it occurred to me that I can write this now and then warm up again. I tend to sit and chill at this point anyway.

My first half starts in a lift, and we all have a little sing song. Then a touch of slow walking and I get to watch the Brabantio scene and get a sniff of the audience. Tonight everyone was momentarily plunged into darkness on stage and they valiantly continued. It was only for a moment but I’ve written already about time on stage. Everyone in that magic box would have experienced eons in the dark. That’s the live thing, the thing that it must be all about. All of us in a theatre breathing a story together that is fragile and just for tonight. The fragility adds to the beauty.

Iago and Roderigo are on now. The drunk scene is coming up which will be my cue to start getting back into my body and voice. It’s a tough one to hold, Lodovico. I warm up long at the start, but I need to crank up and be authority right at the end here in this big theatre.

It has grown on me this stage. Tim is using the thrust largely but it can go really really deep. I like being on the thrust, in among the people, but vocal clarity is essential and that doesn’t come without work. Daily warm-ups and then topping up mid show.

It also means I need to be careful how I wind down. There’s always someone going to the pub but I think I’m gonna start avoiding it unless there’s a friend in the house.. We’ll see how that goes, eh?

Anyway, I’m gonna shake my booty and make sure my resonators are resonating. Cassio has just said how he has poor and unhappy brains for drinking and it’s telling how the action of the play unfolding has affected my thinking as I write. Oh dear, there’s Cassio getting drunk. He’s gonna turn nasty soon…

—

And now the show’s over. Largely my focus today was technical. Keeping my head still when I speak. You’d be surprised how hard it is. But if you’re after a high status trigger, that’s your monkey. And I figure I’ve done enough work on the calophonics and unlocking the potential ways in which a thought can be expressed that I can be present and responsive and let that work rest whilst keeping my head still.

TC gave me a cunt of a note about what I was doing with my head this morning and I was thrilled because it means he knows I can do better and will move towards it. I knew exactly the avoidance activity he had lasered in on. Old shy actor stuff mixed with obedient actor imperative to cover the whole audience with my face. Taken to extremes it can look like a twitch. Burnt away like the faces in some Venetian portraits.

Third Othello.

We’ve all invented time anyway. But we almost got it in under three hours including the interval. Tim came to the pub afterwards which means he didn’t want to strangle us all.

Time bends in live theatre when you’re performing. And it hugely changes through the run.

First night. You are waiting for your cue for three or four millennia, then the lines before your cue come up. You enter. You exit. Lines? Did they? They certainly might have. Nobody died. Was I wearing the right clothes?

Third show? Space starting to happen. These things we say, there’s time within them starting to open up. We have said them loads but we’ve kept them fresh. We need to know more about it all now. There’s space starting to happen.

I played a clean show tonight which I needed. Details might have shifted in terms of where I placed myself, but vocally a clean line and heard, singing on point, didn’t feel like a dick. Didn’t throw lots of plans at myself either thankfully. It’s typical that I got gloves yesterday and used them twice, they’re just noise but Annie observed positively this evening that my journey has been *despite* my intellect. That’s a clear observation. It’s not really that helpful for actors to be left brain clever. I’ve gone towards my body as best I can, with the help of the likes of Wendy Allnutt and now just glorious Lou.

Scott said in the dressing room that his favourite moment tonight was when as Lodovico I walked through a narrow piece of stage where Jono, holding two swords, was so actively trying to get one of them into his scabbard that he had no fucking clue that the brother of the pope was an inch away from the other naked blade. Lodovico saw a sword pointed at him. My reaction was entirely honest, small but truthful. Cost about half a second and did the Tim thing of truth. 100% Factory, plus helped catalyse conversations with other company members about how we all go after “the truth” and what that means. It’s a fascinating game Tim gets us to play. Maybe the game noise is designed to flood the left brain. Right brain dominant players like Annie have an immediate advantage if they trust they can play. Annie reminds me so hard of Maz, one of the Factory people I’m happiest to play with. I hope our conversation tonight opens a similar freedom to the one I am so familiar with from Maz.

I wanna post pictures but I’m being careful. I’ll try and talk to the company about this but I’m not sure if I want them to know about this blog generally… Kester knew I was blogging on the Olympics and it didn’t cause ructions but I guess I’m even more cagey cos acting has always been my primary …

This is the second time in twenty years that I’ve met Georgie. She’s living in Stratford and the first time was when I got home off my face last week. It’s not her fault, it’s the association. I knew I didn’t want to do it again.

This evening we spent time with one another without overaugmenting chemically. She is a mother and it looks like she’s made an actor with one of her daughters. The daughter doesn’t want or need any advice from the old lag. Still, Georgie is making sure I’m visible to the daughter. It’s smart. Me and my lot, we are the kids who ended up doing the drama. Very few of us were the drama kids, excusing the memory of our dear Factory founder Alex. Alex and I were the only two people recalled for my Guildhall first round on the morning I was there. He knew a lot of the people in that room, and they knew him. I knew nobody. Bless Wendy, my movement teacher and first round panelist, who made me her special project for three years…

I’ve been on a campaign for Wendy since I’ve been in Stratford. She is an actress who taught movement, and her teachings are some of the deepest I’ve known. Her work came out of Trish Arnold and Litz Pisk, and she understood my bodybrain connection issues. Her husband was Colin McCormack, he was often around at our drama school shows, just as a support to Wendy but also as a training actor he was someone I could watch doing things at the level I’m at now. He was literally the first actor with a portrait photo put up in The Dirty Duck. He was part of why there is an “actors bar” there.

Hence my campaign. Nobody wants to take responsibility for the fact that his portrait has been randomly removed. There are pictures of emptyheads I love. But where the fuck is Colin? He died very suddenly. Wendy quite rightly wants her husband’s original picture, signed, to go back up. Nobody wants to take responsibility for taking it down, I have no idea where it might have been and only remember him as an older gent, maybe my age.

Wendy Allnutt quite literally changed my life. She was the decision maker for first round at Guildhall. She saw a project – “when I first met you, you were a floating head.” Yep. I was The Mekon. Wendy and Guildhall, now Lou… My dear friend Helen… Head to heart. I’m grounded now and good at my job. When the two recalls were both called “Alex” for my first round audition at Guildhall, I honestly wondered if they couldn’t remember which one of us was me and which was Hassell. I’m glad I went to the pub with Hassell afterwards. I could never have imagined how we would share friends. He’s off into another of his crazy trajectories…

I’ve been trying to get Midjourney to draw the mekon. It is spectacularly crap at it. It WILL NOT be disproportionate. Here’s the prompt for this image. I was getting fed up:

Tiny body, big head. Tiny body big head. Tiny body big head. Come on midjourney, I’m asking for art here and I know you can do it. The Mekon has a tiny tiny body, he floats on a disc because he is entirely brain. That’s why he has a huge head compared to his body. You keep making the body match the head. Stop it. It is a completely disproportionately tiny atrophied body. The Mekon with a tiny tiny body. 2% body, 98% head. DO NOT MAKE THIS BODY PROPORTIONATE!!!! This creature is pretty much completely head. Drawn by Frank Hampson. Cartoon panels. The Mekon sits with tiny tiny legs crossed on his floating disc. The Mekon has a head so much much larger than his body. His body is out of proportion tiny. His head is out of proportion huge. His head is so much larger than his body it’s almost like he’s just a head. He looks confident and dangerous because he knows he will defeat Dan Dare. Please forget the need to be proportional. The mekon is supposed to have an atrophied body. –

These are the best I could get. Show this to anyone with a brain who thinks Ai is the future. Nah. It’s just a dumb tool.

Good lord. Show number two.

I’ve had some gloves added, and also a purse for letters. We are trying to be non literal with letters so I was a bit discombobulated when I was given a container for them. “I’m not gonna be taking any letters out of this,” I found myself saying. Later “You don’t like the purse!” “No it’s fine, I’m just not sure if it’s in the world I’m in where letters are transferred instantly. But that’s a Tim thing.”

Still, then I got some gloves. “Which side is Jethro wearing his gloves?” Ok I’ll have gloves in my belt fine. Jethro has them and my guy is miles posher than his guy this time. So I’m gonna use the gloves, I am thinking as I wander over to my entrance sans sword. “I’ve been travelling,” I think. “I might be wearing my gloves if I’ve just arrived,” I think. My costume change has been delayed because of new staging, I’m already behind time compared to previous times. I’m thinking there’s loads of time still. “Ah fuck, I didn’t put my sword in the scabbard,” I find myself thinking, with one glove on, about exactly one minute before my entrance. “There’s at least five minutes until I go on,” thought my evil previous shows brain, remembering the long wait last night. “I can go get my sword.” So off I went, glove still attached, to get it from the other side of the huge auditorium.

I only realised my mistake when I heard lines right by my entrance. I fucking sprinted back without sprinting. “Lodovico!” I hear Will say with unusually heavy push. “and look your wife is with him” and I’m on the bang, coming through the audience, looking happy as you like, no sword, glove on, talking. “Save you worthy general”. I hit the light and know that Tim and the people on stage know something unusual happened, but only a touch of pace was lost. I then instinctively go into a fucking great big flourish which is entirely character appropriate and designed to stop TC from guillotining me and then excoriating my face from all existing portraits. Do I pull it off? I’m Al Barclay. More to the point I’m well supported. Juliet did the deepest curtsey in the history of curtseys, making herself interesting to look at for the second I needed. Thank God we are an ensemble. I ask myself how I can get so thrown off by a pair of gloves and a purse, but I’m telling a story about someone who gets more thrown off by a handkerchief.

But yeah, career first nearly late entrance. I was discombobulated after. Did some unnecessary walks on stage with all the adrenaline, was trying to make up for the near drop with energy spam as is my way so lost some specifics but also craft caused me to drop into my weight and ground. Didn’t send me up into the stratosphere. I’ve really grounded in my work since those early days when my Vata Libra Air sent me flying.

I made some Pitta offers I wanted to make with the gloves – near strangling Iago myself until I stepped on “oh a dagger, perhaps I’m better off going home”…. it’s better to propose such things now when Tim is here to either say yes nothing or you’re a twat, all of which have deeper and deeper nuance the further you go towards knowing he wants you to be the best version of yourself.

Vocally solved last night’s issues. I was thoroughly warmed up and maintained it through the whole show. That’s what I needed to do last night. I wasn’t pushing, I was the voice of status: “Hi, my brother’s the pope. I’m only here in this shithole because I wanted to see my cousin.”

Much more experimentation. Much more joy. Free ensemble. We’ve only just begun and Colin counted it there are at least 8 Factory people and I count 9 cos Juliet came and played for early shows and she’s always gonna have a space. Ten with Jox who was 100% Odyssey Squad and I personally pimped him into some really powerful improv positions, knowing his strengths and calling him a friend. This is a really delightful company. We are now doing internationally recognised Shakespeare, as is correct. We are in charge of it and it is a fine show. It looks so good. Judith and vast team, Paule… everyone heading up the visuals have nailed it, and then Donato and Jox with the sounds… If I start trying to name people I’ll be here until sunset.

I’m gonna go email the ticket people tomorrow so now is a good time if you’ve got a specific time you want to come. I’ll do it all tomorrow but I can’t do comps and would prefer it if you just book and save me the bollocks. But those of you already in a conversation, I think things can be done.

I’m home.

My debut performance at the RSC.

Spike the movement director sat next to Stephen Fry – he directed me in my first ever job in the industry. He was in the house tonight. I’m happy he’s still supporting Tim. I enjoyed that Twelfth Night, at The Globe. I was at the front of the pit while a load of people I’d been running alongside played Twelfth Night, with him as Malvolio.

Tonight I played Lodovico and fuck me was I nervous? I thought I had learned to deal with that shit long ago. Turns out full house at the RSC still can put the shits up me, not to the extent of shakyleg disease, that one is thankfully long gone. But bad breathing, vocal push… I wasn’t totally relaxed out there despite being surrounded by friends and in a safe place. Thankfully I know I wasn’t alone as nobody here is the kid that pretends to do no work and does all the work. We all work hard and then we admit it when we feel like we haven’t worked hard enough. I was pushing on my first entrance.

It does help me inform a character arc for Lodovico, because as I relaxed into my body and breath I realised that Lodo would be similar. He’s come from the rarefied world of high society Venice, into lawless Cyprus. It takes him by surprise, he doesn’t want to spent time in it and he’s damned if he’s going to to die there. So he arbitrates governance, secures future stability and gets the fuck out as quickly as he can. The last two lines of the play I’m just saying “I’m going home immediately so I can tell people what’s happened. BYE!”

But yeah I was nervous. I’m only human. This company exists in the imagination of most actors as an aspirational company. I want my debut to be good. Nerves are the opposite of helping, but perhaps sadly inevitable. Now we’ve done that first fucker we can breathe.

Only one show tomorrow and now the real work can begin because we know what it is and how it lands.

I haven’t been paying as much attention as I might have to when our first public show happens but it turns out it’s tomorrow night. I’ve been trusting the process, and I still do. We did my talky bits this morning under the lights at last. We got to the end of the show. You’ll be able to come and see it from tomorrow. Good lord.

Stage Management Cake Day. The end of the tech. I’ve still got a while to organise press night cards although some people might do them for the opening. It’s such a huge number of people to write cards to, but as expected we’ve come together and got to know each other better in Stratford now, since there’s not much else to do.

It was a party tonight at The Other Place and it’s telling how different I felt about it compared to the last press night I was at round here. It was for The New Real, which might explain things as I haven’t been able to see it yet and barely know the cast. I’ll catch it in October. David Edgar’s Pentecost directed by Peter Clough at Guildhall is still a standout piece of theatre in my memory, and now I’ve got a passing acquaintance with the writer as he’s been very much about in London and here. His works always have a political bent and often make dry reading on the page, but they ping out with good actors and directing. I’d like to see his latest. But instead I showed up at the press night briefly.

I didn’t show up in sexy clothes and stand around looking to be witnessed. I hid in a corner and ate free sausages with my coat and scarf still on, passed the time with a couple of actors and then picked up my mail and did a french exit. Too much to think about with the company I’m part of, even though we have a fortnight of previews and I’m pretty sure things are gonna change a lot from where we are now. This show will still be breathing hopefully for the whole run, even once we lose Tim back into Canada. He’s running a whole great big damn theatre there. We’ve been lucky to have him as long as we have, but we’ve hopefully got him with us for a few more weeks, to keep a careful gubernatorial hand on the good ship Othello.

Tech rolls on. There’s a lot of it. Considering it is a very clean and stark telling of this sad tale, there is a lot of technical stuff to work through. A huge amount. The engine of theatre… This stuff has such history, flying in huge things, trapdoors, massive lights. Sometimes I’ll be exiting down a narrow track with drops into the audience on both sides and a bright light shining right into my eyes, and I have to exit like a normal person walking instead of someone who is concerned they might stack it into the audience and look like a twit.

I’ve finally popped my cherry on the big old stage, teching the first few bits of Lodo. We will finish tomorrow. Tech is a friendly time to experiment when nobody is really thinking about you. Experimentation with physicality and voice. I’m still enjoying the discovery process with my boy. He gives a fuck, Lodovico. And he’s very very high status. How do I settle into this extremely handsome and commanding human being? Well, obviously it’s just who I’ve always been etc etc.

Today has been largely about working out where I need my costume changes, what my show track will be, where my hangers need to be, when I have time down and when I need to be alert. We’ve all been in shows where someone has missed a cue. The key is to never be that someone. It’s not that much to ask but right now it’s bombardment. People who are sure on their words can still momentarily lose the plot when suddenly they’re in a blinding light looking at something that isn’t the person they’ve been talking to in rehearsal. I’m sure all of us have done movies and TV where you only really get one shot and you don’t have all this rehearsal time. We dress rehearse tomorrow, but there are so many previews to come. It’s remarkable. So many previews, and a surprisingly short run.

I’m loving this process, drinking it in. In the corridors I walk past signatures of old friends and acquaintances – there are clusters of names associated with old shows. Some make me curious as they have been painted over. Others make me smile. There’s this long old history of actors doing acting in the place. I’m happy to play my part.

After tech today a few of us grabbed a pint in the duck to decompress. Then I cooked myself dinner and somehow it is really late and I guess I’m going to have to get used to these days that start in the afternoon and end at night. Hey diddly dee. I’m off to bed. These sheets are wonderful.

I got myself into the RST on a speculative tech call – I figured I might not be needed yet but my costume is ready for Lodovico. I wanted to try it out. The fitting in London had been on a sweltering day and I almost passed out. There’s a lot of material. I want to be comfortable in it, but also learn what it gives for free.

It gives so much for free. I would post a picture but intellectual property is important with big companies. I don’t want to blow it before it is officially released even if I’m just a little cog in this machine.

Huge breeches. Beautiful fitting jerkin. A custom made sword belt. I stuck my sword into it, walked around back stage a bit. “I’ll put my lenses in,” thought I. “This lift likely leads to the dressing rooms.”

“It’s just through this door I think.” *click*

The theatre is big and closed to the public today. And suddenly I’m in the locked up public area and the door to the staff section is locked behind me and needs a fob which I haven’t got with me. I’m on my own in this incredible costume with a sword. All the lights are off.

For about twenty minutes I stalked the halls of the RST, a Jacobean ghost. It felt like hours. I considered panicking but figured it was better to just explore. I pressed my nose against glass doors, rattled handles. I likely set off many alarms. Someone would have been watching me at security, chuckling at the eejit actor. I contemplated unbolting a huge wooden door and then running round outside to stage door, but the rain is heavy tonight and I knew that would set off an alarm. It’s one thing to get lost, it’s quite another to disrupt the tech. Up and down in lifts. Finally I found a door propped open leading to the back end of running wardrobe and a familiar staircase and behold! My dressing room. I put my eyes in, and nobody had missed me at tech, and my heartbeat went back to normal.

Now I’m sitting stage right. I’ve been singing “THOO” in a little clump whilst Annie picks up a hankie. Now Sam and I are just chilling out. I won’t be needed again but I’m here in case they go back on it. Tomorrow will be Lodovico tech time, so I can just enjoy listening to other people working for a bit. I love this lot. This is a glorious gig.