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I went to the theatre tonight. A beautiful little theatre. Richmond Theatre. It opened in 1899 with a production of As You Like It – the play that will be my next job. It’s a beautiful play about many things including the hubris of mankind to think we are greater or separate from nature.

Frank Matcham the architect is remembered by plaque outside. He was a great theatrical architect. His design allows 840 audience members to sit in their seats and hear a play. He understood acoustics and catered brilliantly.

Richmond Theatre is a proscenium arch theatre, the chocolate box style that Charles II brought back with him from France. It’s a bit more framed than the theatres we were used to in this country when he restored the theatre, but it makes it less work for the actors – there’s a fourth wall and you know to address your eyes and voice out over the audience.

Tonight we saw a well put together play, tightly acted and charmingly written. Hanging off the proscenium arch on either side were big black speakers.

Every actor that spoke was miked with a little earpiece mic. Their sound was sent through the speakers and out through the beautifully designed auditorium in a homogeneous wash. Largely you could work out who was speaking when, but it was very easy to stop caring.

I care about voice very much. It was incontrovertibly the golden age of Guildhall voice training when I was there, and Michael McCallion, taken way too young, was the guy who helped with my audition speeches. Jeannette Nelson, Kate Godfrey, Annemette Verspeak, Patsy fucking Rodenberg. Heavyweights of theatre voice every one. Every actor in that theatre tonight could have been heard without the mics, could have sustained a run. Maybe they would have worked a bit harder for it. Maybe they would have risked vocal tiredness, vocal damage. Maybe they would have needed to get in early to warm up. They would have. And we would have had human directional voices.

Technology is eating our humanity at an alarming rate. I thought we might still have theatre. But even at the RST they had shotgun mics around the edges of the stage to subtly amp people.

What the fuck is going on? What the hell do they think we trained for? Is this so the instagrammers can start playing the parts without going hoarse after one week. Apparently “the theatres insist on it”. What, because some deaf old git moans about the fact they couldn’t hear the tellybox star? Fine. Send on the cover.

I didn’t hate this evening, but it put a bigger barrier up than any fourth wall. The only expression was the movement. This isn’t musical theatre, I get it if there are songs every night, that’s gonna be fucking exhausting. This was a play though. A play. A theatre play with talking. Come ON people. Hundreds of years of technique reduced to some guy in a box with knobs.

Urrrgh.

The bells at St Martin’s just rang 5pm. I’m sitting on the Portland stone at the North of Nelson’s Column, flanked by the lions, watching the fountains. It’s another mild autumn night and London is buzzing. It’s as crowded as I’ve ever known it. All that covidiousy is a distant and sickly memory. We are back in business as a city.

International politics and silly angry people want to try and sell the story that London is full of angry foreigners knifing people for being white. It couldn’t be further from the truth. There’s a good happy mix of people here, and plenty of people with poppies on that don’t look like they are suddenly going to go apoplectic and start painting roundabouts. Loads of tourists bringing money into town. They’ve built some kind of Christmas market up at the top of the square. It is buzzing and bright and positive.

I’m walking now as I write, down Whitehall past horse guards parade. There’s ped barrier up on the sides of the road from yesterday. Yesterday there were some benign middle class people wandering around with banners and slogans. Seditious chanting. Perhaps it’s nice not to try and murder a whole people? Today there was remembrance at the cenotaph. Old geezers with all their medals on. I’m there now as I write. Where’s my fucking poppy? I’m wearing it. All the wreaths have been laid. It’s dark but people are still here, being respectful. I’m gonna stop a while too and think of my grandpa.

—

It’s guarded now and cordoned off. Didn’t someone get arrested for widdling on it a few years ago? Feels peaceful tonight though.

And the rain has started. I can’t walk and write anymore.

—

I got on the tube at Westminster. Heading home. Funny to think of those conflicts, almost forgotten now. We don’t know what the word fascism means now. We just throw it around to mean “people we don’t agree with”, so the people we don’t agree with have started to thicken their skins to the accusation and dig into the ideology. “I’m not a fascist, I’m just being logical and looking after my own.” Those dark times are almost forgotten and huge pockets of the western world risk getting sucked into the same fearful protective thinking holes that made it all possible the first time. More and more people just following orders and going with the majority, and then the idea that there’s some “globalist socialist” organisation with a specific name that is mobilised against “ordinary working people” or whatever. It’s madness. The wokerati have joined Antifa. Here we go again kids. Let’s not kill millions this time please.

—

I’m out the other end. Heading home. A lovely cup of tea with a friend and I’m feeling melancholy. It’s the darkness.

Lou is off back to Brighton. It’s actually been lovely having her here, even though we’ve been like ships in the night. Huge show she’s working on and it has been a big long week for her, up very early and home very late, in on the weekend. This’ll be the shape of it for her for quite some time. She’s already pulled some friends into her gravity with it and earned them some money too. One of them will be going off to Riyadh.

It’s pleasant being the person that gets your friends work. I’ve been enjoying that recently too. It’ll deepen her bond with them, and we all know that work breeds work.

Not always immediately though. This time last year I was still in Stratford. Now I’m gearing up for America but right now I still don’t know who I’m going with. It’ll only be five of us and the dynamic will be very important. I’m hoping it’ll be a lovely bunch. No wankers. They always say that if you’re on a job and you think there are no wankers in the cast it’s because it’s you.

It’s already late, I lost track of time. Now I don’t have Lou to help me time keep and go to bed it is already going to pot. For both of us. Brian slept all day, back on New Zealand time, and he’ll be up all night now.

I’m gonna keep this short and try and get my head down. I get the whole bed, but it feels empty …

It’s a strange pleasure having no work suddenly. Sure there are things I could be doing, should be doing, will be doing, but I can let myself off the hook at the moment so I am. I’m not going full teenager here, Lou leaves for work early so I’m up when she goes. Cup of coffee and I drag my laptop into the bedroom. I sit in bed with coffee once Lou is away and boot up the machine. The cats know the drill already, they lie either side of me essentially blocking me in on the bed and forcing me to stay there are lounge with them. So I do. Once my daily admin is done I can’t leave the officebed as I’m trapped by cats, trapped I tell you. So I might boot up a computer game for a bit, stream old episodes of South Park, or maybe read my book. I won’t be having a nap anymore as Halloween walk is over and I’m less likely to be in need of extra sleep as I’m not dousing my liver in neat booze five or six times a week. Feeling a little bit less shit.

Before lunch is time for my morning walk, probably up to Heidi in The Royal Hospital, combined with a stop at the post office should it be necessary. Some groceries if urgent, maybe something for lunch. Today though that was covered. I reopened my Nonna Tonda, which is not a cheap service sending easy cook yummy fresh pasta meals once a week. It’s not cheap but it’s a good meal ten minutes after you’ve thought about it and I’m grateful for it every single time.

Brian and I had lunch together, his day today was comfortingly similar to mine. Then the afternoon shot by and Lou was back from work, sitting in dusky Battersea Park beside me. Friday night and neither of us wanted to go out to eat, we had curry at home, now post prandial and she’s looking at luggage while I think about my day. “What the fuck am I gonna write about, I’ve done fuck all.”

My chamomile is at perfect drinking temperature. I’m very happy with things right now. Sad that Lou will be back home tomorrow and then both of us will be on our travels before long…

It’s taken Lou and I about three years to watch the whole of His Dark Materials. We finally got to the last episode this evening.

Typically in the time we’ve taken watching it I ended up working with Will who plays a baddie, but was already dead by the time I met him so I don’t get to witness his work through the prism of my fondness for him. I might go back and watch his final episode. His daughter is in it too and now I know that I can’t not see his face in hers. It added an extra layer of pleasure, buoyed up further by the fact that Metatron is played by one of the founders of The Factory, Al, who I met last millennium at our Guildhall first round audition.

It’s a lovely way to tell a complicated story. The costumes are great, it looks as good as it can with a BBC budget, and they have employed some real depth of acting talent – it isn’t just a pile of vapid twits with followers. Way to go the BBC. I expect it is always gonna be a hard sell to the US market that story. It is too complicated about religion to pass muster with any group of people who are using a specific faith to justify bigotry. Casting a much loved story is always an absolute bugger, because if people can read they’ve already imagined what everyone looks like. I cried after Neverending Story. I switched off the BBC Lion Witch and Wardrobe and refused to acknowledge it existed, aged 8ish.

I recognised the bench at the end of Dark Materials immediately – it was around there in those Oxford botanical gardens on a freezing cold winter’s day that I split up with my first girlfriend Anna. “I bet that’s crowded these days at midsummer,” Lou remarks, and she’s right. There’s probably a queue these days. People probably bring their cats.

I had a quiet day. Sent my bank details to the cops so if the geezer who broke into my car in Brighton ages ago pays his fine I’ll get a little bit of compensation. I would prefer it if they had found the guy in Camden so smashed my window in broad daylight over an easily measured half hour period and nicked my accordion. I’m still trying to replace it. I’m gonna need one like it very soon and can’t find one shy of £350… Fingers crossed.

Full night and Lou fancied a walk in the park. I haven’t been there much at night. Foxes and it was busy still after the fireworks. It’s been wonderful having her here but we are ships in the night and she’s about to go off for months and months, and so am I. I’m proud of her, the work she’s doing, the way she’s going about it. It’s a huge job but she has the skillset. But she’s asleep already and it’s early for me. So I’m writing in the living room while she drifts off next door.

Brian is playing VR next to me. It’s how he stays in touch with his best mate in Manchester, and it helps him wind down. He needs that right now – jet lag and a difficult slice of life, and Maddy is the other side of the world. Him and Robin run around shooting people and nicking their stuff, and occasionally getting shot back. While he sits in his chair he occasionally performs extremely complicated reloads, or winds up rope or climbs ladders. The cats watch him, both fascinated and baffled.

The games in this household have made it easier for the cats at this time of year. Bang bang bang all the time through the VR and they view it merely as a mild curiousity. Bang bang bang through the fireworks and it is much the same. Misty just ignores it and Boo just wants to know where it is coming from so she can make friends with it.

—

Now I’m bathed and very glad of this unseasonably mild weather. Bergman sailed through his MOT this morning, and I took the opportunity to go and check on my friend’s mother’s place. I’m a keyholder and I like to go there occasionally since the neighbour broke in and changed the locks when she realised it was empty. He’s in the middle east, but I’ve known him since I was 8.

Happily home, warm and toasty in bed, around about the time I might normally be finishing the walk. It’s raining outside.

Many of the masks and costume bits are in my car. I’ll decant them to the attic at some point soon, labelled up. They’re only useful for a month. No point having them in the corner of the living room for the other eleven months of the year.

Siwan and I wound up strategising. Why the hell not have two of them running simultaneously next year – there are some creepy tales and great pubs in Chelsea.

I do need to sort my own life out too though. This next month is going to be unusually empty of work, but the one after it is shaping up to be absolutely fucking carnagetastic. I’ll need Christmas Day to fall flat on my face, but Brian and I are doing the usual and I’ll be sober so I’ll be able to drive the sleigh and get people home at night which opens up all sorts of possibilities. But before all that madness begins wouldn’t it be nice to put my house in order and address the things I’m constantly dropping and ignoring.

If only I was wired to get my missing dopamine out of filling in forms and bringing in money, rather than moving things around or telling stories. Gonna have to trick myself into it sometime or other. Much is still undone. Mummy and daddy very much not going to do it for me.

I booked an MOT and so far so good, nobody has jumped up my arse for being late with tax. I think you get a week of grace. I can get these things done, jiggle my diary, and find time to relax so I’m ready for December, and perhaps I can go visit an old friend in Hungary and empty out some more expensive storage. Making lists helps, as I learnt from Lou.

It’s great having her here. She’s asleep beside me as I write. She’s working hard – we have had opposite schedules. I try to wake up early, see her off to work, go back to sleep a bit, then get stuck into the day and finish later than her. Usually she’s been asleep by the time I’ve got back from walkies.

I was fiddling with AI in an idle two minutes and described an image for next year’s walk that will overcome the fact it was advertised with a gravestone saying “last year” this year. It still might be the last year, Siwan will need to be persuaded, but I’m holding out hope.

A strange day.

A good friend of mine flew back to London from New Zealand. He had a small claims hearing.

His best mate got the train down from Manchester to be there. His business partner and I just had to get up in the morning and get across town. We didn’t need to be there. Just there to support.

There’s a queue outside the county court and then you have to go through the metal detector. It’s all quite intimidating but if you’ve seen the video of Marianne Bachmeier you’ll know why it happens. Lots of people coming in in the morning. What has everyone been up to?

I was just there as emotional support really, I didn’t go into the hearing itself. They were out almost immediately though as the judge encouraged them to settle. A settlement was reached, with lawyers mediating. It was all a very sad thing. I’m glad it’s over.

My first time in a court of law though, even if it was just to support a small claim, still a weird experience.

Afterwards we all went to Dulwich and to this colossal venue that they are running – a castle in the middle of an estate. The best friend and I just hung around a bit and ate Wingstop for lunch. Emotions were still running high after the settlement, not because of the settlement, just because of the circumstances that led to it. I don’t want to write about it – it doesn’t feel like it’s my thing to write about, but it felt … correct to spend the day in the little group that’d met at the courthouse this morning.

In the evening an early dinner with Lou and Brian, frying up some of the excellent chorizo I bought from The Hampstead Butcher, and throwing it into a bowl of pasta pesto and kale. Easy and tasty comfort food. Then I played with Boo and she accidentally pawed my face with her ferociously sharp back claws and now I have a little straight gash on my cheek that I reckon will be showing for a week or two and for the first time in ages I’m glad I’m not on set right now.

A sad day but it’s done now. As Brian would say, Onwards for Glory.

And we are done. What a delightful little chapter as we fall into winter. A charming shouty stroll across the blasted heath. Tonight not so blasted either. A very quiet calm clear night, a bright moon and stars in a clear sky. We go into the dark together and this evening I didn’t have to shout. I just chose to.

Lou was there. Normally she’s asleep by the time we are halfway through. She stuck it out through the whole evening, with Canice for company. It felt like a lovely close. Siwan and Jo and John all on good form, all trying out new material even though we might never do this again. Every time I do this it feels more fun and more felt – and more right. A creative outlet, and gradually getting to know the mechanics behind ticket sales and marketing etc but on a low low budget. You get back what you pay for if you’re smart about it. But it’s all work behind the work. The team loves the execution, but we have less fun with the admin, for which Siwan is basically a one woman band, and of which Siwan is growing mightily fed up.

I get it. We all want to go play on the heath together. On nights like this it is just silly friends being spooky and fun and clever together for the public. If we could do that gainfully without all the admin then we bloody well would, every night of the year. But for every good front end there’s a good back end. The front end neighs but the back end does the walking.

It’s late here and everyone is asleep. Brian is back from New Zealand and likely to be jetlagged to bits. We’ve got someone on the sofa, we are a full house. The cats aren’t sure if they’re happy about it or weirded out about it.

This Halloween Walk has been a lovely expression of our peculiar personalities, the five of us in the team. The audience has come along with us every time. Despite my threats, nobody actually died. Hopefully more fun and no death next year… I’m thinking about Creepy Chelsea as well… But hey, I might well be too busy on set.

I’ve learnt to be compassionate about people who think driving is an effort. For a long time it baffled me. Now it just annoys me.

For instance, Lou worked at Glyndebourne with someone who was driving back every night to a place that was close to hers. Even though the person knew it, there was never an offer to help her either going in or going out. She was on the coach and then the train. She even asked: “I could cycle to yours, leave my cycle outside yours and jump in with you, then cycle back from yours?” “Oh no, it’s not a safe area to lock cycles in.” That’s more about the “no” than the reason. It’s a panic response from someone who defaults to “no”. I thought about it for a while as I couldn’t fathom why someone would not be willing to help in that way. It’s easy to think they only care about themselves or they are lazy or mean. But actually I think it is more likely that they are nervous drivers. Driving a car is a scary thing to them. The longer they are driving a car the scarier. Unfamiliar routes are scary too. And passengers are terrifying as they might find them out or be at risk or other imaginationthings.

Also I guess there are some people who find it easier to say “no” than “yes”. As a great big “yes” that’s another one I struggle to make sense of.

Jo sometimes picks me up before the walk. We end it a long way from where we start and I’m in costume so it’s nice to park at the end and somehow get transport to the beginning. The Old Bull and Bush is in an area that Lime Bikes think of as Heath and don’t let you park. If Jo won’t pick me up, I get a bus beforehand and feel like a tit in my costume but get there and know my car is parked at the end. Tonight she didn’t want to pick me up. I think it adds about ten minutes to her day but she’s older than I am and if I’m tired she’s likely tired double. Hey ho.

The walk was a glory tonight anyway. Two friends of mine from Guildhall in the audience. It is rare that anyone I actually know comes. I don’t shout about it. It was lovely to have them in, I sat with them for a wee while after, but then I had to get myself back to the car. I only left about twenty minutes after Jo, but she decided she was leaving immediately this evening even despite at one point offering to take me back to my car at the end.

I’ve enjoyed this year very much, this tour, this group. It’s a fun thing to do at this time of year and makes people happy. It has provided the solution to my money worries recently, even if it’s just tickover cash. I just don’t want it taking more of my life than it has to, because … it’s just tickover cash.

I think we will be back next year. Let’s see. We ran into a rival tour group on the same route as us. I delayed and they went ahead and fuck me they were dry. Siwan got to hear a load of their stuff while she was waiting to pop up in the graveyard. We were a colourful group up the hill from them, sending waves of laughter as John and I both extended our schticks to give them time for “in November 1853 the law changed after an act of parliament that had been submitted in April of that year by messrs Goatley, Flump and Mungus was finally passed, stating that groups of people using public byways that pass private houses in the areas of London delineated in this tiny map I’m holding could be exempt from the 1851 byways ruling whereby etc etc”

I could see people looking winsomely at our laughter as that stuff unfolded in front of them. Horses for courses I guess.

As ever I’m knackered as I write this. Won’t proofread it. This is my noise tonight. Wake well, my darlings.