AlBarclay

I’ve put all my semi precious stones on the windowsill in a glass jar of salt. This will achieve precisely nothing. Probably. But it might cleanse them of negative energy and make them more good at doing whatever crystallish type things they are supposed to be helping with. It’s the moon, you see. It’s all full and doing eclipsey things. People who are happy to pay double if its organic will assure you that putting your crystals in salty moony water does a thing. Who am I to assume they are wrong? I want my stones to have a thing so they can do thingy things and betterness happens!

Seriously I need all the good energy I can eat at the moment. The money just hasn’t been flowing in the right direction. Tomorrow morning I’m up at 6 to shave down to a moustache and get a short tape in before I go off and invigilate for the morning. Trying to redress the balance. One of the stones is a citrine and apparently they do something about money. Righto. I’ll always take Pascal’s Wager on these things. It generally makes life more interesting.

Post Marcus Antonius I’m just letting myself reconfigure. My back is pretty good now, still slightly ornery but the agony bit has gone. This timing coincided very well with me finishing the xanax. Seems I ordered just the right amount all those months ago. Didn’t know what it would be for but it has been the perfect companion and now I shall wean myself off it so I don’t use it as a booze replacement and end up zonked and benign like a fifties housewife.

I made the mistake of watching the news a bit today and was reminded about the state of America and how that rough beast, it’s hour come round at last, will crawl through here on its way east. I didn’t write about it at the time, but the day Starmer met with heffalump in London a few months ago there was a massive visible immigration sting on the King’s Road, with all the delivery bike drivers being stopped to have their papers checked by men with “Immigration Enforcement” written on the back of their hi-vis. We always follow America, more so now that culture is not localised.

So I switched off the news and unashamedly played Skyrim until Brian and Maddy got home at which point I ate a bit, washed a bit, wrote a bit and now I’m going to bed with an ibuprofen. It’s not good enough that I’m going with nothing but that day is coming soon. I just want to make sure I’m rested tomorrow morning, so I can turn in a decent tape. I’ll put one of my new washed stones in my pocket while I film it because, you know, might do something…

Lou came up from Brighton to see the show tonight, and I’m very happy she did so. It felt like a special thing. She got it.

All the rules and the tradition and the hierarchy and pomp of that remarkable school, and right in the centre is that Speech Room. Portraits of prime ministers staring down at the stage, a sense of history. A difficult acoustic there, and oh it is a very revealing space. As a performance space it really is just bodies and voices. You can’t hide. And voices can get lost in the echo without precision and support. But… it’s where so much began for me. Camille in Flea in her Ear directed by Martin Tyrrell. Behind closed doors, that room transformed into a very safe play space for me, and I found terrific freedom there back when I was a boy, over the course of many plays.

This evening with the full moon above the chapel, I poured my heart into Antony and not only were there old Harrow School teachers there, and Lou, I had a drama school teacher there too! We had three people who were in the third year at Guildhall when I was in the first year, and to cap it off, one of the incredible beings who made up the tight knit teaching group that helped so many young Guildhall actors learn to … to do it better. Martin Connor. The same as ever despite the college committing suicide via giving them all the heave-ho simultaneously a few years ago. The Guildhall lot were all there to support Ollie as Julius, I was as surprised to see them as they were to see me. But I’m so glad they were there. Blood moon, and so many intersections of shared blood in my life thus far.

After the show the inevitable plaudits and speeches and I’m happy I’m sober – I wouldn’t have wanted to drink the red wine they were serving anyway judging by the smell of it, but I’m sure I’d had put some away and then remembered I had my car. There up on top of that hill on such a warm September night, I don’t really know exactly what energies I was moving around or where or why, but there was some channeling going on in that building, and it felt positive and bright. I’m still crackling with something now. The cats knew it, they are sitting on the bed squabbling for prime position. It can feel draining to radiate heart and text like that, and often it seems logical and necessary to cut the edge out with booze when finished. Tonight I feel different though, like I’ve done a ritual and now I can rest feeling charged but not itchy, enervated and like I’ve shifted a blockage of some sort.

And on top of everything else, that’s Marc Antony learnt. I’m sure it’ll come in handy some time. Meanwhile … … back to the drawing board. Oh joy.

It’s almost half twelve. Just got home. Everyone was going to The Works Dept bar for a drink after the show and I’m gonna have to get good at going to that sort of thing and not fidgeting every time someone goes to the bar. They had Becks Blue which I know of old, but you can’t have much of the stuff. Bars in general get very old very quickly without the draw of good old Al Cohol. I did a French exit very quickly and swung home in Bergman. Avoided Macdonald’s and knocked up a quick scran at home instead. Brian and Maddy have been out all day so Boo was very happy to have company. Misty was just sleeping as usual. She’s a bit put out as her favourite cat tree was replaced for reasons I can’t really comprehend either. It was a bit tatty? She’s mostly sleeping anywhere but the new cat tree in a silent protest and I don’t blame her.

I’ve been thinking about Shakespeare’s skull.

There was a rumour propagated in 1879 that someone had nicked Shakespeare’s head from out of his grave in 1794. The rumour connected it to a skull in Beoley that we now know to be a woman’s skull. It was dismissed as a hoax back then. But in 2016 some guys with a radar checked the grave out and feel pretty strongly that there’s no head in there. People with radars often end up thinking ridiculous shit as witness the pyramids, but this one strikes me as feasible. Think about it, if you’re thinking of someone holding a human skull, who do you think of first? For a lot of us it’s gonna be Hamlet. Alas Poor Yorick. Shakespeare is Person Most Likely to get his head stolen.

It doesn’t have to have been nicked in 1794. Ollie Reed might have gone on a massive bender during The Wars of the Roses and then woken up with it on his mantelpiece and been clueless as to how it got there. There might be an amdram wardrobe somewhere with a “fake” skull in it. Or some goth kid has a candle melted on to it somewhere.

Someone stole Shakespeare’s head.

It might still be out there folks!

There’s all sorts of material there. Good God I want to believe it ended up on stage somewhere with some Hamlet playing a blinder “I don’t know what possessed me in that scene! It was like I knew it better than anyone in the world!”

This was 2016 news. How is it not more widely known? Maybe the church that houses the bones don’t want it widely known that someone broke in and robbed a grave. But people have always broken into churches and nicked stuff, or pulled lead off the roof etc – look at what happens to Bardolph in Henry V. It’s sad, but these are big lovely trusting places and they must remain so despite so many people being arseholes.

I didn’t go to see the actual tomb when I was up in Stratford because there’s a lady there that wants a fiver and I don’t really think she ought to be there so she’s not getting my fiver. If I was Deadshakespeare wouldn’t want people to pay a fiver to contemplate my dead bones. I’d want them to contemplate their own mortality, the fragility of this brief existence, the need to live while we are alive. But I also probably wouldn’t like to think I would be separated from my head perhaps forever because of enthusiasts centuries after my death.

Maybe the church needs all those fivers to get better security. What other bits might a Shakespeare fan be after? His heart is long gone I’m sure. His writing hand, perhaps. He writes a lot of right write hands. You could have that in a jar above your desk for inspiration until you got arrested. I feel there’s not much call for his penis. It might do well in the cock museum in Iceland, but he never really turned his thoughts up there. You could have it on display in The Dirty Duck, he definitely liked his pubs. Rasputin’s willy is in a museum in St Petersburg, but the Russians are weird and Rasputin was very much a willy man. Our Will likes his dick jokes as much as the next writer of that era: “Come on my right hand, Antony.” The text is stacked with stuff for the groundlings. But anyway, a dick is but flesh. Like his heart, the worms have eaten it long ago.

Hopefully the rest of him can lie there undisturbed. IF IT EVEN IS HIM IN THERE. *tinfoil hat*

There should be a campaign to try and find the skull. Maybe it’s in a hospital store, a school science cupboard, a museum drawer, unattributed. Human skulls aren’t really the sort of thing you just chuck away, even if they’re old and anonymous. Maybe it can be found. Give it a run as Yorick in the RST and then put it back where it came from, I say. You’ll fund the search if you find it. “Guest starring William Shakespeare as Yorick the Court Jester.” Packed houses every night even if, God Forbid, the actor playing Hamlet isn’t off the telly box.

The surroundings are so majestic they do a great deal of the work for us. But Speech Room is a space that cries out for technique. Listening, it sometimes feels as if people are just intoning vowels when they give their speeches. All those Guildhall lessons with Jeanette and Kate and Patsy about consonants are coming to the front. We know what we are saying but listeners don’t and it is so important in these long long Elizabethan poetry pieces that we HEAR the play. People used to “go to hear a play”. We have only switched to our visual obsession in modern times and going “to see a play”.

My response to my audibility concerns this evening was to hack the fuck out of everything. I’ve got a vocal support structure when I’ve warmed up properly. My diaphragm kicks like a mule. But I was ginger about my back and didn’t roll around as much as I might have before and I really felt the lack of it in Friends Romans Countrymen where my thoughts weren’t aligning with my breath and I kept having to pick myself up and throw myself out again with no recovery time. Largely speaking this is a safe space to play this part, but I’m never happy to turn in work I can’t stand behind so I’m gonna have to get in early tomorrow and roll around, and also make sure I’ve stashed some water behind the tiring house. Act 3 scene 2 is an awful lot of talking and no time for dropping back in. I found myself almost immediately taking my jacket off just as I was trying to radiate and it was restricting my movement. I might try and get a nicely fitted shirt tomorrow and just come with that, put the old will into my trouser pocket instead. Antony doesn’t stand on ceremony at this point.

We finished late. I’m getting changed in what used to be The Guild Room, a little broom cupboard to which the arty folk were relegated in break. It is in the back of The War Memorial building which is vast and you walk on polished flagstones past the busts of the great and the good. Big plaques telling tales of old boys who hit the big time. Poets and statesmen next to each other, and upstairs a light shines in a wood panelled room forever on a portrait of Alex Fitch who died in September 1918 and whose parents wanted him to be remembered at the school he’d just left.

Driving home late I stopped in a queue of vehicles at the drive in Macdonald’s. Post pomposity, Shakespeare and high status architecture I needed to get some cheesy junk with normal people. I had a bottle of water and some chilli cheese bites with barbeque sauce. Easy to eat while driving and available at 11pm. Totally unethical and I should be ashamed of myself. Shoved it into my face as I drove round the north circular. Finished now and I’m in bed with xanax. Back is definitely better every day, and rolling around on a ball keeps helping before I work. Soon it’ll take no more of my thinking and I look forward to that time. Being booze free and a little healthier (barring supper) I am looking forward to noticing how much better I feel on my new healthy minerals and better food regime. Right now all my focus is going into my wonky glutes.

“You’re the one that I want, you’re the vol-au-vol-au-vent. Ooh ooh ooh.” Every night, over the river, behind the Buddhist pagoda, actors who haven’t got good enough credit rating to ever get a mortgage are loudly exhibiting skill and passion to large crowds of people via the medium of “Grease, the Immersive Experience”. Someone is sitting on a pile of gold but they aren’t the ones singing in the rain tonight.

I’m home. It’s dark. I’m sad but only because it’s dark. I’ve put my electric blanket on to warm the bed up. I guess the world has decided to do seasons this year. It did summer in summer so I can’t be too bitter at it for doing autumn in autumn. I’m hoping it’ll draw the line before doing winter in winter. It feels like it was only a few months ago that I was thrilled about the arrival of summer and I’m not done with it yet. Damn. I’ll have to pick up a new skill to slow time down again, it is supposed to stay nice until my birthday dammit.

Coming up to a year ago today we were starting rehearsal at the RSC and I was allowing myself to believe that maybe things would start to get a little easier for a bit. I guess I’m not having to sing songs in a park for £15 an hour, but there really is no momentum in this business, it sucks, I could use a point of focus, something to look forward to… I’ve got The Factory, and I’ve got this Julius Caesar which I can’t really overlook I guess. This weekend, two shows, and it’s a lovely bunch of people and a wonderful part in a very special and historic place in terms of the modern history of Elizabethan Theatre in this country.

Lou was in town briefly looking fabulous. I met her on the way to rehearsal in Shepherd’s Bush for a coffee. She had been on Goldhawk Road. I’m looking forward to spending a bit more time with her once I’m done Shakespearing but one thing at a time. Hopefully by then my back won’t hate me anymore. Every day a little better.

Mister backpain is still staying but he’s getting quieter. Either that or I’m just tuning him out. He still comes to the front from time to time but I’ve done this day without painkillers. Yay.

I moved my homeless friend into a Peabody that belongs to someone’s mum. That was this evening. Back pain very much present, but this time he had time to pack his stuff properly so it was really easy and I could manage my loads. All his worldly possessions in three trips to the car and back. He’s light. It’s impressive. And I was on light loads – didn’t take the book box. It’s unusual for me to take care of myself like this but every day’s a school day.

It feels safe up in that flat, and calm. It is someone’s “spare flat” and they are lovely enough to say they don’t like it being empty when there are young people stuck for a home. I’m very happy to see him through that door. He will have a launch pad now, and it’ll be close to me. So long as he doesn’t piss the owner off too much panicking about things I think this could work until the social housing gets him to the front of the list, which could take up to two years but apparently no more than that. He gets bumped up cos he’s had to move so many times in the last few years. He has good people advising him, that he’s found. I’m glad of it for him.

Home now. Maddy is building a new cat tree. Tom is on the sofa tonight. Autumn closing in but it feels like community is around me and however shaky I might be feeling within myself, I know damn well how lucky I am to be here surrounded with incredible bright friends. There are many sacrifices on the altar of acting, but the people are extraordinary and radiant and fucked up and I wouldn’t have them any other way.

Hot bath time again. Mister backpain doesn’t like them, particularly as I bought loads of Epsom salts the other day at TK Maxx almost as if on some level I knew this moment was coming. Maybe I did on some deep level, maybe there was a twinge coming out that my brain knew about before the pain receptors kicked in. Either way I’ve got the salts so I’m gonna soak and warm up and get another early night.

I just spoke to my brother – he’s in Australia. He’s off into the rainforest. “I’ll message you in 36 hours or so. If you don’t hear anything, I just realised nobody knows I’m going into the Daintree rainforest – it’s the bit that sticks out on the top right of Australia.”

I love my brother. “Don’t get bitten by anything,” I tell him.

Max used to pretty much always be doing this sort of thing. He’ll probably be camping. He’ll set up all sorts of traps in the afternoon, leave them overnight, come back in the morning. He’ll probably end up finding a new species. And he will have the absolute shit bitten out of him but he’ll be fine cos even in Australia the things that kill you aren’t swarming.

Having him as a brother has always helped put the tiny weird bits of nature into perspective. On a day to day, it means I’m not going to go bananas about wasps or spiders or beetles etc. I’m allergic to bees so technically they are actually slightly dangerous to me, and I still find myself helping people who aren’t allergic but are freaking out. The more you understand something the harder it is to fear it.

I’ve had people tell me all sorts of ridiculous things about various creepy crawlies, all with the certainty of the zealot. In this country, I’ve been told that millipedes are venomous. I’ve been told that centipedes have poison hairs and can’t be handled. I’ve been told that crane flies have venom, that daddy long leg spiders are capable of biting humans. I’ve been told that ichneumon wasps can sting with their ovipositor. I’ve been told that various harmless caterpillars are lethal. I’ve been told that various harmless mites can burrow into flesh, syriphids are wasps, carabids are ticks. Spiders are hunting us. So many people carry so much absolute bullshit about insects arthropods and other tiny creatures, and most of it is just inherited and thoughtlessly accepted. Parents with phobias have a hard job not passing them on, I get it. Mum was wonderful in that regard. She woke us up to share a huge tropical storm one night in Nassau, held our hand in the window looking at lightning over the sea. I didn’t find out until I was an adult that she had been terrified and had woken us up for comfort. I still love storms. One day I showed fear of spiders in front of dad. “Who taught you that?” Someone at school had reacted with fear. We went and found a spider together to see how it isn’t to be feared. Fear and dad couldn’t be in the same room as each other.

The entomological world is vast. We are very lucky in this country to have very little that will do more than an itchy rash. But Christ almighty people make up all sorts of absurd stuff to justify their phobias. “Aaaargh!” “Dude it’s totally harmless.” “NO IT’S NOT IT CAN BITE YOUR HEAD OFF WITH ITS FEET! IF IT BLEEDS EVERY DROP OF BLOOD SPAWNS ANOTHER SIX. IT CAN READ YOUR MIND!”

As a general rule, the creature isn’t targeting you specifically. It probably thinks you’re an interesting smelling warm plant thing. You’re unlikely to get stung by a wasp unless you trap it in skin by mistake or really piss it off by flapping like an idiot. But the waspfear brigade will tell you with good eye contact that “No, they target you.” etc. They’ll back it up with a story of how they have been targeted before. Listen to it and filter it through what you know of them. Because it’s confirmation bias.

Max will be fine I hope, blazé in a place with fauna that can actually kill you. He’s not alone out there. I’m happy for him. I know he loves his expeditions.

Last night, half a xanax really didn’t touch the sides. I can feverishly remember every time I rolled over in the night. Back pain is a good remedy for snoring. Also a good remedy for sleep.

Any notion I had that I would be avoiding painkillers largely to keep an eye on potential damage have gone out the window. Brian had something American for migraines and I dropped it this morning with my vitamins and minerals, after a bad sleep. When it finally kicked in it was bliss. Movement again. When I felt myself coming down again late afternoon, I begged paracetamol off Esther and it kept me happily able to do all the things until rehearsal was over. Shoelaces are still an adventure and standing up from seated is a fascinating and involved process. Most of the rest of the things are in my grasp, largely without yelping suddenly.

It was a long day. We don’t get much more time at this, so we have to take rehearsal while we can. Another few stabs through and I’m starting to get a handle on the arc of it. It’s not the biggest, not the smallest. He has places to go to. Gotta find the hooks and dig into the clarity. So little time, it’ll always be a hack, but that’s why I’m here. To learn it. It’ll come back with The Factory and finally I’ve done my homework. Supposed to be doing Cloten. Heigh ho.

Nice bunch. Thank God. Barristers and enthusiasts. Couple of teachers, couple more actors, some that used to be an actor but family or money or consistency was too pressing. Toby at the heart of it. He works with light. I like him very much. Morale always trickles down. We all just lost our weekend, but at the end of the day today we all stayed later than we needed, in order to form a human chain and bring hundreds of chairs into Speech Room. The boys are coming back. End of the summer holidays and the weather to prove it.

I drove home and Brian had left some chicken in the fridge for me. Glorious. I’m full of it now and in bed. It’s too early for electric blanket but I’m sorely tempted already. Half eleven and already the local foxes are yipping in the street behind me – they’ve grown very bold now. I’m glad the cats are house cats.

I’m gonna make a chamomile and switch myself off. My birth month in the morning, but Autumn always makes me a little melancholy. I might have to get one of those sun lamps as I’ve been sad enough this summer.

Something in my back went properly today. Not properly properly but worse than usual. It started with the oven, but then was when Ollie’s whole weight was thrown towards me as I was lifting him. We were trying methods that didn’t involve my back, as I had asked for that. I wanted a servant to come in. Not sure how it ended up like it did but there I was being amenable as ever and it really fucking taught me to draw boundaries. I’m hoping it’ll only be a few days. I suspect it’ll be months but not as bad as this.

I could barely drive home. Turning in one direction hurt. My left leg needed to be extended so toes for clutch. Oh man. Eejit. I still have full range of movement, and I’m refusing painkillers as then I’ll keep moving safely through it, easing it out, making it better.

Now I’m home, I just ate dinner and I’ve run a hot hot bath full of salts. I’m about to experiment with half a xanax before bed. Normally I’d write this post wash but I’m doing it now so I can just fade into sleep. I bought the xanax ages ago alongside an order of mushrooms, just as an emergency option. Once in digs in York I was woken up at 1am with the worst toothache I’ve ever experienced and had from then until the shops opened in agony. Now I try and travel with emergency options. Xanax should take the edge off the pain and help me sleep. Might not help me remember my lines which is an issue, but tomorrow I’ll be straight and the pain will keep be focused. No audience until Friday. There’s time.

On the river, the boats are serving their usual Saturday night dose of weird party music. In the park, they’re finishing immersive Grease as they have done every night this month, pretty much. I hope they’re paying their actors properly. You can hurt yourself doing simple things in this profession. (I reckon the bulk of it was the oven).

The cats are being cute. I had a great dinner. I’m not regretting my sobriety one iota this evening. Let them drink. I’ve got my bath and my xanax, probably not at the same time. But I’ve lit incense in there and it is full of salt and now I’m gonna soak my aging bones, read my book, chill.

Taking my shoes off was interesting. Ah, movement is a precious luxury.

Known as George of Lydda, he was definitely a Christian – he was martyred for it in 303 AD. At the time the (Dalmatian) Roman Emperor in Turkey – where things were largely being organised – was Diocletian. Diocletian was deeply into his Roman pantheon. Followers of a monotheistic God were at risk.

George was a good fighter, and rose to high rank – all the way to Praetorian Guard – the protectors of the emperor. He was open about his monotheism – his Christianity. This caused him to be swept up in purges by the emperor. “Convert or die.” What fucker thinks that is a reason to kill people? But that’s the ancient Romans.

He was martyred in his home city of Lydda, hence his name, George of Lydda. This is the city of Lod in what was then called Syria Palaestina. There is a tomb in Lod, they claim to have relics. They tortured him, dragged him through the streets, and beheaded him.

His martyrdom was well respected by monotheists. Monotheists such as Muslims, Druze and Christians all venerate him for standing up against pantheism to the last, despite torture. His death was a rallying point and his name was eventually taken on as patron saint of many many countries. The Ukraine, Ethiopia, England, Bosnia, Malta, Bulgaria, and the republic of Genoa to name but a few. Even the cities of Moscow in Russia and Beirut in the Lebanon have him as their patron. He is venerated as martyr to Islam, Umbanda, Christianity, Santeria, and numerous orthodoxies and offshoots. His name is a rallying cry to hopeful Ukrainians, the dispossessed of parts of Africa, the displaced of Bosnia Herzegovina.

Just 75 years after his death, Theodosius Christianised the Roman emperor. George the Turkish Palestinian soldier would have been thrilled had he lived.

It is largely attributed to the Genoese Republic to connect a red cross on a white background to him. We find it referred to in the Genoese annals in 1198. His name was still a rallying cry. He died for Christ. A cross of blood on pure white seems appropriate. It was known as cruxata comunis Janue – the cross ensign of the commune of Genoa. They were a great seafaring nation around the time of what we call The Crusades.

1095 was when Pope Urban II proposed an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Over 100 years of sustained attacks followed, with an eye to convert or die again, but this time by the Christians. See above opinion. A strange long complicated history, the crusades, not often taught. It was the making of many, the breaking of more. We established trade routes and systems that are still in place now – banks and pilgrimages. Shared symbols and linguistic hiccups. Templars and Camino. Amputation and complicated suturing. War brings innovation. Sustained war feeds a form of technological and cultural progress.

If you’re going by boat from England to the crusades, Genoa is gonna be a solid stop, but the Genoese fleet was dangerous. Best to have a pennant that prevents any misunderstanding. Richard I, the lionhearted king who barely set foot in England, took the Genoese flag and patron saint for England, for his crusaders, and to cement a positive relationship in an area where he spent much of his time. A cross of blood on pure white. A strong symbol for a bloody Christian crusade. English ships would be safe from hostility in the Mediterranean. It tallies when you look at the flags of other Christian sea powers in that region. Sardinia, Malta, Barcelona…

So this symbol of a Palestinian Turk found its way through Italy to England. And it is a symbol for Ukraine, and for the dispossessed over a large portion of this rich and varied globe.

Driving into Kent yesterday I saw many of these George Crosses. Perhaps a solidarity with the people of Kyiv specifically after the bombing, although it must be confusing as it is also a symbol for Moscow…

Some people seem to think the George cross is an exclusive symbol for their very inward looking personal and badly spelt idea of what “England” means. If you get them talking it’ll be confused and subjective but bits of their worldview will overlap. They don’t like people who have come over in boats, that’s likely to come up. In boats. Like the Normans, the Vikings, the Saxons, the Angles, the Jutes, the Celts and in fact everyone apart from perhaps the very early Neolithic flint napping hunter gatherers who would have roved to this land over Pangaean land bridges from what is now Mesopotamian Africa where all humanity originated. Essentially the only people who didn’t come in boats were cavemen. Perhaps that’s what the flags are trying to say. “We are cavemen.” You don’t need a flag to tell us that, darlings.

It’s nice to think that people who would otherwise be sitting on their arse are dragging those idle knuckles out into nature and doing arts and crafts in the sunshine. It can only help expand their thinking and their coordination. I think they might believe that doing it is some sort of an act of defiance or pride, but the problem with symbols is their meaning is subjective. They mean nothing more than what the observer takes from them.