AlBarclay

This is the reason I’m holding onto those ten wheelie wardrobes. Ffion and I looked brilliant tonight down under the globe. It was a big night for a company that runs a network of unutterably vast international container ships. Pictures of piles of stuff that I would be freaking out if I was told I had to move them. Big big metallic things and you can fill ’em up and do what you like with them. Maybe I need one of them on some land for the wheelie wardrobes. Where’s my stately home when I need it? In my heart, a little part of me still lives in Eyreton, but Eyreton in the home counties somewhere and not The Isle of Man. These days though I’ll just have to win Omaze.

We did three Shakespeare scenes over dinner. A bit of fighting, a bit of love. We got a cheer for the kiss, I got them baying like hounds with me, we had moments of nuance and moments of humour. A Greek guy caught us as we left. “I understood you even if I didn’t,” he said. Ffion said “English people don’t understand Shakespeare. You’re doing well.”

It hangs together, this corporate offering we have built. It’s almost as if we have been refining it for two decades. And the costumes we plundered for it from those damn wheelie wardrobes, they really leveled it up. They are made of good material, but made with skill for theatre. Ffion was out of her dress faster than I was out of my doublet. It’s all one piece, pearls and ruff and all. Poppers and zips in all the right places. We are both gonna isolate and hang these costumes as they are perfect for this work. I might dig out a cape to finish it off, and maybe a little feather hat. And I’ll likely offer the wardrobes as a resource for AFTLS and my upcoming tour.

About two weeks ago they asked us if we could do it without microphones. Ffion insisted we needed them. I was saying at the time that we could hold it even in that space with projecting. Ffion was right to insist. I was dead wrong. That space is an absolute fucker. “Imagine if we hadn’t been miked,” I said to Ffion after… She knew it had been her work that we were. Thank Christ. These guys in the audience, they do logistics and largely have English as a second language. Even though there are overlaps now with my world and theirs, I know they’ll want to talk over it. My events lads, they aren’t the type to think they understand or like Shakespeare. But they know hard work when they see it. And they appreciate what they can’t do cos they do what they do so well. But the second scene, the rowdy scene… They were rowdy. We held our own as we know the material works and we trust the relationship. They were quiet when we needed them to be, somehow. Energy and connection. Still firing on all cylinders. But thank God for the microphones. I can reuse my costume, it isn’t absolutely drenched in Halloween actorplasm.

I’m heading home on the tube now with my costume on my lap. A lovely evening. Another one on Thursday. It’s all part of the weft.

I’m sitting at The Old Bull and Bush listening to punters who have been before. I ordered a trio of roasts as it is fucking gorgeous. “They must like run ahead of us and change their clothes in a bush,” says one of them. There’s certainly a bit of that sort of thing going on. “There’s this guy in a hat who distracts you while they run past…” I should put that on my CV. Distracting man in a hat. It is a marvellous hat. Out of the Glyndebourne hoard. One great big battered stovepipe that fits me perfectly. It wasn’t battered when I first wore it. I could probably fix it pretty easily, but I like the feel of it twisted up like it is. It matches me.

As always I like the punters for this. I prefer them to the people you normally hear shouting about wine in the West End interval. They fancy an unpredictable walk no matter what the weather, and they are happy to book it weeks in advance.

Now I’ve eaten I need to get my energy back. Unbelievable amounts of food. Really lovely but I’ll be asleep when I walk them over the heath unless I digest this quickly. Likely will have to solve it with coffee.

Zzzz

Did it did it. Sorry though, short blog today. Lou is over for the first time in ages. She’s telling me all about the theatre she’s working in. She’s on a kids show for a bit in the daytime at St Martin’s. I had no idea it was so small there…

Siwan has been running these Haunted Hampstead Halloween walks for ten years now. I’ve been on board since 2020 with a sabbatical last year when I went up to the RSC dahhling. They are a delight and we sell out every year. Very occasionally my friends decide to book and come. I don’t sell it hard intentionally as I know it will sell anyway and there’s no joy in playing to an audience who have booked because they think you need them to book.

I’ve started to recognise the regulars now. One guy this evening in particular caught me at the end. We stop by the pergola, and I had struggled to find anything even slightly spooky about that place. He told me that the earth to build it was pulled up from deep underground when they made Hampstead tube station, and that got me thinking about chtonic entities and how ancient earth can attract incomprehensible energies. He was happy to see how I’ve built that one conversation in a pub into the weft of my peculiar tour.

The whole crowd though, tonight – so many of them were familiar. You run something for ten years with such a small audience, of course it begins to attract the same strange people, just like that deep and ancient earth pulls entities. We hard cap it at 40 and that’s enough. Even then I’m having to fluff for ages while they catch up. I found myself wittering on about the nature of the George cross this evening on the top of Hampstead hill.

We all marched out on the heath again and I had friends from Wilderness Festival in the audience. People from my deep warm summertime connection event were with me as I strode into the darkness. These regular performance jobs where I curate and generate the content, they help make sense of this strange existence I’m carving out, all about connection and transformation and shifting energy. I was very happy to know that Gen and Ellie were there tonight. Last time I saw them I was working through some things in a summer field. God knows what I’m doing out there on the heath but it’s positive work in the darkness.

I’m knackered now and making pasta. Should probably stop it boiling. The cats want attention. It’s already late. A good night. A good night. A good night. Eat. Bed. Wash?

Back to Halloween Walking, but with the added fun of starting to really worry about money. It’s my own doing though and I can find a way out. Just have to act quickly. And pull back. Cheap eating and the fact I’m sober is helping. There’s really no point in drinking non alcoholic beer in a pub but for the social imperative to have a hand to mouth action while you’re in the place. It’s weird sugarwater. I eschewed it and drove home as soon as work was over.

Afternoon was a happy break. Claire is in the Harry Potter thing in the West End. She gets out between shows at about half four, so I went and hung out with her briefly for a coffee. She’s thrilled about the American thing – we looked at the tour dates and it is all too brief but still … I’m excited at the chance to see parts of the world I’ve not been to before. It’ll be over before it has started but the end of it will be the beginning of spring. I’m happy I’ll be distracted for winter. Just have to line things up before I go. I really really need somewhere that isn’t the most expensive place in Canterbury for me to put my ten wheelie wardrobes. The rest of the stuff in there I’m not really concerned about. I’ll have to find some sort of solution to all of Christine’s worldly possessions, as they are gonna become more and more of an expensive hindrance. They were only meant to be for a short time and I’m starting to regret my generosity now, as I both suspected and was told that I would.

Practicality. Damn. I need to be better at that stuff.

The walk will pay a bit I’m sure, but not loads. Oof. I’d do a commercial right now… Where’s all that telly work I thought I’d have when I got this old? Hope springs eternal. Being more efficient with the movement of stuff is key to this clearance work. I’ve got the rest of it down. Need to be activated and ruthless with the last piece of the puzzle.

Up to Windsor in the morning and I meet a guy who has been doing this thing of repurposing sets and taking out the trash for a long long time. He’s also Art Dept for a pretty damn big production company, so that’s an alignment as loads of the stuff he gathers can go back round into his own shows… He gave me some money for some books and there’ll be more money for some awkward candelabra that I’ve nearly jettisoned a few times by now. I’m happy they’ll have a new life and I need them gone now, I need to dissolve that unit ASAP and strip back to just the costumes and nothing else. The costumes are alive to me and in focus. Everything else is really just dead energy in my imagination. Too much of my money is going on it. It’s gonna become unworkable sooner rather than later, especially as the unit just put the monthly rent up unexpectedly by £100, which takes it from nearly too much to handle to definitely too much to handle. It’s a fine line.

Went to the lockup and grabbed a couple of wee bits and bobs I want to have to hand. Ratchet straps and blankets. Hard hats and high vis. Sat in a coffee shop for an hour and got wired on good coffee, and then spun over to Acton to help a friend with his stuff. He’s got a unit in Goldhawk Road that he wanted some things taken out of and moved. He’s letting me put the straps and hats etc in the gap we’ve made. Then I’ve got access to them West as well as North which takes a bit of travel out of the equation when I’m pitching for jobs.

Storage space, it really is all about storage space. The more you have the more you can do in this game. Even the straps etc. Either you live with them in your house, you find external solutions like I have, or you burn your budget buying them new every time you do a job. Unless you live in a great big house, having these bulky practical enabling things at home just encroaches on your living space. Tools. Materials. You need stuff to do stuff and you need to do stuff to make the money to buy the stuff and store the stuff so you can do the stuff and round and round we go and somewhere in all that you eat a sandwich.

Early next week I’ll rent a van and take it to Canterbury and grab some stuff to give to the guy I met today. At the same time I’ll finish emptying one unit, and then go home via Ipswich to grab some stuff for a friend while I’ve got a van, before taking the Canterbury stuff to Windsor and dropping them off with another stuff carousel person. I think it might be the beginning of something though, meeting him. If my next big removal job lands I think a lot of it might go directly to him and back into the industry immediately. Round and round we go.

A learning day again today, and much sorting. I picked up John in the morning and we went down to Canterbury. I hoped to consolidate everything into one unit and empty the van, but practically it wasn’t quite possible in the way I envisaged it. I needed to free up some space. Fortunately over the years I’ve met lots of people who do unusual things. About twenty minutes after I sent a video of the alien sarcophagus I found a prop maker who is converting it into a cryostasis tube for a show in town. Then a little later I got enough money to pay John into my account in exchange for nine euro crates full of nice old books that I was on the verge of just giving up on. The lesson, of course, is that time spent working on something reaps rewards. I’ve been conveniently forgetting to focus on these units, but I absolutely mustn’t take my eye off the ball with them anymore. I have to lower my monthly costs on storing this stuff or I’m throwing good money after nothing.

That said, Ffion met me in the storage unit at lunchtime having driven down, and we grabbed some costumes for a thing on Monday at one of my older regular money jobs. It’s been hard to get our heads together on that one and the client has been so slippery about money that my imagination has slipped away from them. There’s strange energy coming back so I’m not throwing too much of mine that way right now. I’ve got a fair few pies in the oven right now. But I’m happy we will look good while we work which is an important part of the deal. I’ll keep holding myself to a high standard even if it feels like they don’t care a spit about anything but the bottom line.

I’ll have to go back soon to that unit, I reckon I might be able to find a prop warehouse to take much of it. On the phone they always ask for photos, and it’s so bloody time consuming for no certainty that I’m tempted to just show up with a van full of stuff. With photos they’ll pick a few things and won’t want the rest, but if it’s all in front of them nicely packed in boxes I’m thinking maybe they’ll just take the lot off my hands.

When I dropped the sarcophagus off, they asked me if I had any wooden flats. I could have cried. But all that wood the other week went into energy via Riverside Resource Recovery so maybe that’s just where it needed to be. Everything at the right time.

It’s been lovely moving shit around with John. We were at Guildhall together. Lots of blood under the bridge since then and both of us are still switching the light on. I’m home now and tomorrow a little less busy but still shifting things. Canterbury is too far though, I’m gonna have to shift things to make myself more efficient as it always feels like a mission.

5:30 alarm. Coffee. Still using the grinder. Still loving it. Clothes. Driving licence. Angle grinder. Mask. Oh fuck.

I had put a little pot with yesterday’s daily disposable contact lenses at the top of the stairs. Boo had found it in the night. I need my lenses but they could be anywhere. I’ve ordered more but they won’t arrive until afternoon.

Thankfully it’s too early in the morning to panic. I just relied on my own chaos and found an unused pair in a random pocket of an old denim jacket. Into the van.

I got to Aylesbury at 7:40, and met the guy. He shows me the unit.

These units have been cherry picked. 100%. Probably happened when they were loaded in. Still my job isn’t to assess value. My job is to clear. I pulled everything where I could see it. Empty boxes that used to contain power tools suspiciously present. I’m fed up of seeing these theatre units stripped. They are stored at great expense in case of a remount.

Metal to the metal pile. Wood and junk mixed up as the local place doesn’t shred the wood. Marie arrives and then John. He rolls in with the Luton and I send him off to the recycling centre full as quickly as I can. We re-sort the second wave. Anything even vaguely decent goes into my van with all the mixed metal. Everything else to John. We are done by lunchtime and John is at the tip while I’m at scrap. Sorting it makes such a difference. Job well done I stop at Heston services. I’ve got a heavy bucket full of dead candles on my passenger seat as I wasn’t gonna pay weight to throw them. I’ll drive them to domestic some time. The back of the van is full of similarly random stuff, and one great big trolley that might be useful and might have to be cut up and binned, but that’s for tomorrow-Al.

Sitting in my van with a face full of Greggs sausage roll I answer a call from my agent. I’ve been waiting for this one. If it’s “yes” they call and if it’s “no” they email. I almost choked on my sausage roll. “Have you got a criminal record, darling?” “No.” “Good, well you’re going to America.”

That’s a fucking turn up for the books. This morning my filming took off the pencil so fuck it let’s get the hell out and reset my passion and make some new friends and see weird places. It’ll help me forget its cold. I’ll have to pack a hot water bottle.

Immediately all the practical stuff flooded in. We’ll have a lot of work to do. I love the play – As You Like It – and the line of parts is interesting. Don’t know who else is coming yet. But seems I’m off to America! Lou will be going to Saudi at the same time I’m in America. I’m lucky! If she was writing a blog she’d have to be careful what she put in it. The middle east is frequently depressingly autocratic, whereas for me it’s the land of the free, baby!

Right now though I’m just thinking about moving all this crap around. Then it’ll be form filling in, digging out my social security, working out the exact dates of my last trip, all the admin fun, plus line learning… Joy at the end of it though.

I feel like I’ve had an actual evening, post walk, and still I’m in bed earlier than usual, but … we absolutely zipped through it. Just Girl Guides in the audience so no pubs, and I’m having to edit on the fly. They aren’t paying enough for me to rewrite, so I’m just making live calls based on how wired they seem to be. On the heath I have a fair amount of pretty adult material so instead I find myself telling them all to get in the bin, getting selfies with them at The Pergola, talking about different ways of dying… Weird evening.

Halfway through I had to extend it a little while in order to try and give Jo and Siwan time to do the things they would normally do in while the audience is in the pub. I ended up talking about the rather odd habit people once had of eating powdered mummy, and of Flinders Petrie’s head losing its label. Lots of new kid friendly material. Thankfully there’s a lot of junk stored up in this brainbox. By the end of the evening I was spent.

The day started brilliantly at Dishoom King’s Cross with Lou who might be knackered but is on fine form at the moment. I had a spicy breakfast and it set me right up for the day it turned out to be. Without that I don’t think I would have had the mental wherewithal or the patience to cook my own dinner just now.

Ben had booked me for 2pm plus van, so after breakfast I nipped straight to New Cross and picked up a long wheel base transit. We moved a load of boxes of books to a storage place in Acton from another storage place in Acton that absolutely reeks of farts, is falling apart, and costs much more. Heavy boxes though and we are not as young as we once were. We got it done but it didn’t make me ready for that army of thirteen year old girls waiting in Hampstead. I barely made it to the pub in time to start. Usually I’m there hours before. Drove the van there, I had transferred my costume to it when I picked it up. Good thinking as Jo still had to pick me up from outside the King Willy

I sat inside gathering myself, and just before I started thinking through my tour to work out what to change for the guides, I felt guilty and went outside to see if Siwan needed some help with Front of House. She was literally saying the words she says that cue my character and fuck I was NOT ready but Off I Went. She could have fucking messaged the group… If I hadn’t sauntered out at that very moment she would have been eaten alive by those girls. I started before I was ready and it meant I had to work harder in the long run to get them to focus. Had to wind myself up while working. Nothing I haven’t done before. I had a similar group two years ago. You can just bin nuance, set fire to subtlety and use call and response with great care as every question opens the floodgates.

I have to sleep. Tomorrow is very unknown. I’ve not really got the images to know if I’ve pitched this right and I’ve got a horrible fear that I’ll get there and find it is a load more stuff than I’m expecting. It’s another disposal job, but from a few shit photos.

Let’s see…

If I ever commit that billion pound heist and go on the run from the law, my extremely vocal hatred of the cold would help Interpol narrow down where to find me. It’ll be somewhere on the equator, not fucking Svalbard, that’s for sure. It keeps getting colder and darker and I don’t like it.

That said, tonight was strangely wonderful. I was openly pissed off about the weather, bringing a crowd of oddly dressed humans through the wet dark Heath. And they kept laughing and giving energy back the whole way. And even though I was drenched – we were all drenched – when it finished, I felt warm and enervated because of their generosity.

It’s a big ask, to follow a stranger onto the Heath on a dark rainy night. We were out there in the worst of it. I moved a few scenes so the audience could stand under a tree and get whatever shelter they could find. I’m surprised and very pleased they all had a lovely time in the rain. Last night it was perfect weather and the Botox Twins fucked off in the interval. Tonight it was rubbish and everyone came into the King Willy at the end beaming. Phew.

I’m home now, cooking supper for a change, bath is already run. I’ve been reading a lot about Zack Polanski at the moment, the green party leader who is surging in the polls. The algorithm sends me things as he is known in my world – he was an actor in a number of immersive shows produced by people very close to me. I met and liked him. Now he’s enough of a threat to the political status quo in this country that various mouthpieces are attacking him for schoolboy things like his teeth. He’s keeping very much above it all, and he’s very very quick and well researched. His rise to power is the single best argument I’ve ever seen for the right wing to invest money in grassroots arts. Had there been enough money for his early Immersive shows to pay well and run and run, he would still probably be very happily practicing as an actor, and not threatening complacent people. The work wasn’t there, so he rethought things and came up as a shitkicking politician with the skillset and wit of an immersive actor. More power to him, I say.

Ah I’ve been eating as I write. Marinated some steak and had it with chips and peas. Another heavy meal at the end of the day and I’ve had nothing else but soup, but I’m trying to economise and I have no appetite before I work, never have.

It’s quiet in the flat with the cats. Blanket is on and I’m gonna go cook in the bath. I get to see Lou at breakfast tomorrow briefly. Then a typical schizophrenic day… I’d best work towards going to sleep.

And so to bed.

Lovely crowd tonight apart from a couple of people made mostly of botulism and scorn. They ordered a big meal before the start despite being advised not to and made everything start later while having a competition with each other about who was going to look more angry about having to rush their dinner. Two people though, swamped by the rest of the crowd who were having a fun time and got it. I think the weather is going to shit for a bit tomorrow so I’ll take an evening like tonight anytime. These final few long nights before they close the darkness in – they’re precious.

Siwan has to do all the admin and she’s getting fed up of it. Not only having to sell tickets but also having to put up with people writing annoying emails before and after the fact. I hope those two people behave themselves on Design My Night as I could sense they knocked Siwan out of her happy place, and good socials are the lifeblood of such an enterprise. People like that are the contributing factor to Siwan making the image for this year a gravestone with the text saying it is the final outing. I think we might find a way to revive it to be honest. I might have to buy it off her.

Saturday night in Hampstead and I’ve never seen so many coked up folk. Maybe its because I’m sober so I can see it clearer, I’m not in the head-tunnel that only looks towards the next drinky. We had a smooth run though, no eejits trying to disrupt things, just a pair of lovely stoned kids who enjoyed watching Jo being a Victorian ghost.

On the way home I took advantage of our sober late night Muslim community once more, stopping for a mighty fine shawarma at one of the crowded places on Edgware Road. You’re always better off when the kebab shop isn’t aimed at students – whatever that elephant’s leg is made of it is better by far than the stuff they ran for DNA at Reading University according to an urban myth when I was there, and found 28 different meats including seagull. Lies of course, but believable when presented with those grey strips of deathpaste. Tonight it felt like something you could call food even if you were in a foul mood like the bloatyfaces we had tonight.

I’m enjoying having the days free before the work at the moment. It’s a late finish but I’m beginning to find a rhythm. Maybe a bit late to eat all that meat again – my dreams last night were wild and my sleep was restless. I think tomorrow I’ll experiment with a big meal beforehand – I always just worry it’ll make me sluggish when I need to be firing energy. But worth an experiment. I’ll be drinking a load of Gaviscon before bed tonight.