AlBarclay

Up and out. Van day van day van day.

I tried this job a few weeks ago and then they didn’t have the keys to the venue.

Jethro and I met by the lockup. We took all the clothes Siwan and I (mostly her) sorted in Old Street out of the lockup. We slung them in the van. Military stuff was pulled aside for use in JC. The rest to Canterbury.

We stopped at a coffee stop on Camden High Street with an old friend, then over to Shoreditch.

George has got a venue for a deli just across from box park. It’s gonna be a deli/restaurant and it should be glorious. They’re opening in October most likely and need all sorts of things. First they need to get all the chairs out, and maybe get a few settles in. Down the road, Andy has a great big pub venue and he needed to get five settles out cos he needs chairs. Alignment. So we did a swap in the Luton. George recorded it all for his socials. Then Jethro and I drove to Canterbury with a van full of clothes.

While Jethro was depositing clothes in the front of the storage unit, I was buried in wheelie wardrobe Tetris at the back looking for boots to wear as Antony. I think I found them. Then I just made sure I had the camo trousers they want, and we turned to that fucking oven.

I brought that oven down months ago, but it has always been earmarked for the Shoreditch venue. Brian had had it in a greenhouse outside Kingswood and I had to get it into the van ages ago and pop it into Canterbury. Back then in Canterbury I scavenged a pallet and indulged my new love for the pallets and it has sat there for months waiting for its big moment. That’s today.

Getting it back in the van was easy as there was a pallet truck. Getting it out and through the narrow door back in Shoreditch was… much harder. George is skinny but determined. I’m stronger than I look but tender. Jethro is thankfully much stronger than he looks. All that gardening. I tried it for one day and needed two weeks to recover.

It was Right Said Fred without all the damage getting that oven through the door. We ended up taking the knobs off, and the doors off both of the oven and the kitchen. Getting it in finally was very satisfying, no ligaments torn and hey, hopefully it’ll work or I’ll be taking the fucking thing back out again. We put the deli door back on, but the oven door is still off. It’ll make it easier to clean. If I’m not much mistaken it’s the fucking oven I built into Limehouse close to a decade ago for Christmas Carol. We put lino down in a freezing warehouse full of dogs and rats, plonked it in there, and it died on opening night so 8 of us including me as Scrooge in my nightie ended up bussing plates of food out of the local pub and down a freezing street in the rain. Into the back door, past that fucking oven, into the mouths of unsuspecting patrons. Oh the magic of theatre… I think it has been properly fixed now at least.

I’m knackered. Want to go to bed. But quickly gonna drive my homeless friend to Waterloo as he has the option of a place with a door he can close there. Three nights on the sofa here and it’ll be nice to get the living room back even if I’ve enjoyed him being here.

A delightful early afternoon. Lou was in town and we took in the delights of the V&A. There’s a room full of doors I’m very fond of. There’s so much stuff in there, amazing items, mundane items, bits of history on display for all of us that like to have context on the generations before us that have informed how the less reactionary and internet trained humans understand the workings of the world.

We mistake absorption for capacity. These LLM things we call AI are absorbing more than we can absorb and doing it quicker and then rehashing it and presenting it as new, and often getting it wrong or squiffy based on what they’ve eaten. In the end they are a bit quicker than your mate who thinks its aliens or flat or vampires or lizards. They are just as oblivious to the things the scientifically adventurous have learnt over generations of trial and error. They see the scientific word “theory” and mistake it for just a speculation, rather than scientists being coy and pointing out that nothing can be proved for absolute certain. The more ignorant among them take that truth and wield it like they’ve discovered it, usually at heart because they believe in a different Greek “theo” prefix – the one that often precedes “logos”.

So we looked at ceramics and furniture and big Buddhist statues and then we met a deeply Italian restaurant manager who scared me out of the café there and into a lovely healthy place for a daal. Then up Kensington Church Street for excellent coffee and more full-on service. There’s either something in the air and everyone is being a bit extra, or I’m not very well socialised at the moment.

Lou was correctly observing though that the 18 – 20 year olds, an age group you are perhaps most likely to find in customer facing roles – they are the kids who lost a couple of years social education by missing school during COVID. For the next couple of years you are going to be sold rude coffee and indifferent pints. I expect the generation will end up with one of those monikers. “Generation Meh,” perhaps. Slouching around unable to hide their boredom or distaste, making good coffee with absolutely no love. “All our burgers come to you with our special ingredient – mild distaste”. Maybe it’ll rewrite the social playbook and we’re all about to get ruder and call it being assertive. We shall see.

Evening found me back home batch cooking. The weekend is gonna be busy. I made a huge pan of chilli and will work through it for the next few days. Not too spicy mind you.

Gotta go to bed. Picking up a van at 8 tomorrow. Urgh.

There’s been a beer in the fridge the last few days. I got an email this evening from my agent. I asked Maddy to please drink it. She obliged. I am working on better coping strategies. Oblivion isn’t the answer.

I washed my altar cloth, dusted down my butsudan, organised my incense. Things are drying now so I can’t reassemble it properly but I’m gonna put everything back mindfully once it’s dry. I had a bit of a chant. Between January and March this year I’m gonna need a job that is really career affirming and life affirming, cos I’ve just been slapped in the face again with another fucking wet fish. I’m trying to run the whole “I didn’t want it anyway,” routine on myself, but it’s not really sticking. I’ve been LOW since things blew up in my face. I’m glad I’ve taken booze off the table – and thank you Maddy for helping with the kneejerk as it is only a few days old at the moment.

My self esteem needed a hoik. And honestly I thought I’d done a blinder there listening and offering and playing in the recall. What an absolute fucker of a thing, again, the old rejection email. Didn’t even make the fucking shortlist. “Thanks for making it hard for us”. What the hell are we all doing, hoping after these things like this? How many fucking people did they see? Twenty two years since I stumbled out of Guildhall. And I’m still headbutting spikes and this one was self tape back in the first round so they could have literally seen thousands of people. When I recalled I kinda thought it was mine to lose. Makes it even harder that I still didn’t get it, when I know I showed up in that room.

Thankfully I’m secure in my craft and in my confidence. I play nicely in groups, and I turn in consistently strong work when I get the chance. Just at the moment the doors just keep going thunk in my face and it is so fucking wearing and I’m allowed to be angry about it cos it’s fucked it’s fucked it’s fucked for everyone doing this. Ok, someone somewhere will get the call soon for that part: “Good news!!” I am gonna have to be very careful not to look up the casting and see if they look and sound like me. I’m happy for them. We have to celebrate each other’s wins because God almighty this constant hope is wearing. When Pandora opened the box and all the bad things in the world came out, the last thing that came out was “hope”. Because it fucking hurts to hope. My chest is tight. I feel like I’m scrunched up into a little ball now. I’m trying to breathe it out.

Diary looks very very empty. I let myself hope I would just have to fill a gap until January and then meet new people see new towns, work on a lovely thing. But now I’m just falling back into a familiar hole. Shortlist, pencil, pencil, availability check, longlist, silence, silence silence… I tore up the sides Lou put on my altar for a telly I honestly felt would go my way hoped would go my way hope hope hope. I kept the sides there months to charge them up but I reckon its been shot by now.

It’s a full house again here in Chelsea. My pal is on the sofa. He gets on well with the cats. It’s nice having him here. I need my friends, I’m trying to pull myself back up out of a hole I fell into.

It’s certainly not all bad. I went to a table read for a feature film this morning. I nailed it for the writer and was good casting for it. Maybe I’ve done myself a favour there, it was just R&D, but maybe. It’ll definitely be produced. It’s hard to see beyond bad news sometimes. It has been a good day.

Maybe this part I didn’t get that is smaller than I’m used to playing in a play that will be hard to persuade industry people to watch… Maybe it’s okay that someone else will get to enjoy it. Maybe it isn’t the right career move for me at the moment. But … maybe I would like to have been able to make that decision… I might have taken it and regretted it had they offered… Let’s see. “The grapes were sour anyway.”

Today didn’t really go according to plan. I was gonna chill out and learn my lines at home. A friend came over in the morning as he had a self tape and didn’t feel comfortable to do it at his home, a sublet room in Essex.

While doing the tape it was clear he wasn’t in a great place mentally. He’s been in a very manipulative relationship with this live-in landlord. They are renting multiple rooms in a big rented house, paying eighty percent of the rent and needing everyone to know this. They often would have conversations about how “I want you to think of me as an equal,” which immediately proves that they don’t and they never will. There had been a little misunderstanding the day before and it had escalated hugely.

Just as we got the scene in the can, before editing, my mate got a “this isn’t working, you’ll need to be out by the 25th September.” text.

He’s been homeless a few times. No parents. His support network is his friends. And this landlord has just casually pulled the plug over a misunderstanding. I wouldn’t want to sleep another night there. The manipulation was clear to me though, particularly when I saw some message history.

Apparently it’s a pattern. It happened with other people in “the family” in that Essex house. The previous victim did what the landlord was fishing for: “Oh please m’lord no no m’lord I’ll change my ways, from hereinforeward I shall be contrite and hobedient to your desires and wishes oh don’t put me back on the street I’m begging ya.” They were forgiven but it was on their record. My friend shines far too brightly for that. “You absolutely shouldn’t hold taking away somebody’s housing as a threat because you’re upset with them.”

He’s not gonna eat shit for anyone, least of all this classic example of a manipulative narcissist. Problem is, the house is in Essex.

Took about an hour to drive there. Thankfully there’s a lot of room in Bergie.

The “family” were home. Neglected dogs and cats, emotionally manipulated humans, one quite still quite watchful central figure. “They are a millionaire and they have fiscal power,” I am told by my friend for the umpteenth time. Yeah right and they’re running a budget Manson family in a rented terraced house in Essex. “You told me they were a millionaire first, and you told me that three times, before you told me anything else about them. Could it be that that’s a piece of information they want you to be leading with when you think about them?”

Money is power in this system, according to the people who buy into the system. I don’t. He doesn’t. This fucker of a landlord was another one of the fire extinguishers. Some people see candles and pinch them out. There are loads of people like that. Loads. Loads. Look behind you. Loads. My friend is a radiator, and he is delightfully unconventional in a way that is going to cause a certain type of person to want to own him, control him, gently and softly smotheringly extinguish him over time. Loads.

I wouldn’t go in the house. I couldn’t. It was like there was a visible umbra over it. It took me by surprise how hard it hit me but it was palpable. They spend a lot of time in that garden. Who’s buried in there? My mate dodged a bullet. It is a dark dark place. “The cats only come into my room,” he says. “They don’t want to be anywhere else.” Yep. Cats know. They need to get the fuck out too.

The family became aware of me loading Bergman, and they all came out on the driveway, (apart from my friend, up in his room hoovering). They had a loud animated fun conversation pointed directly at me. “LOOK AT US JUST CASUALLY GOING ABOUT OUR NORMAL FUN FAMILY BUSINESS AHHHAAAHAHAHAHA EVERYTHING IS SO FUNNY WE ARE HAPPY AND FUN.”

“They clocked me waiting and put on a show for me!” I tell my friend.

“I wondered what was going on. They never stay on the driveway like that, never. That’s the first time since I’ve been here.” Because they knew I was waiting and they wanted to show me how normal and fun they all are.

My friend hadn’t realised the extent to which everything in that house was manipulation. He tells me “The landlord was fostered. They’ve made their money running a fostering business.” No. The landlord was likely abused. I reckon they’ve made their adulthood transferring that abuse. It’s a common coping strategy and the wrong choice. Loads.

I got home at eleven. My mate is on the sofa, his stuff is in Bergman. Despite my indigestion I was starving and Brian had made spaghetti bolognese. I did a big late eat again. No booze but I’m really hoping I can cope with it. Had a lot of coconut water today and have been very very careful lately so hopefully. Still feels funny down there.

Now I’ve got a friend looking for a home, on my sofa for a bit. He’s ace but we all need to be able to close the door. Anyone?

Bank holiday Sunday but we were rehearsing. I didn’t realise the extent to which I have become a mercenary. But I’m worth it. You want me to do the acting thing I put everything on hold for? Pay me. But this is my Alma-Mater and perhaps I owe it some sort of debt of gratitude. But I’m not grafting like I normally would.

They need some costume. I have some costume. As with many low budget theatrical things, they are willing to pay the clothes. If I find some clothes maybe they will pay the money I want for my time. We work the angles.

They haven’t put a Shakespeare on in Speech Room since forever. Six years. The entire cohort of students will never have seen a Shakespeare in Speech Room. It’s a tremendous drop on the part of the school. In this environment, when the great and the good are telling Fatima that her next job might be in cyber and she just doesn’t know it yet, their children have had their early access to culture pulled out from under them which will only compound the idiocy. But yeah, the system tells us that your child becoming an actor is somehow a parenting failure.

I don’t think the OH Play has ever been wonderful, but it can be charming, it might be memorable. I was packed off to Cymbeline when I was fourteen to write a punishment essay review of it. I enjoyed it. My review was a summary of the action. Many reviews still are in major broadsheets. Back then it was a curiosity that I understood it, as much as that I enjoyed it. Dad was shelling out for me to have a refined education. There was an opportunity for me to start to crack into the idea of Shakespeare as a story told by humans in a room, with the audience.

Even the guys in the Old Harrovian Julius Caesar company I’m in mostly hadn’t heard of the fact that, before The Globe was finished, in 1993, the first show went on in the earthworks of the theatre. Sam Wanamaker, who had driven for it his whole life, fifty years after he had come to London and been appalled there was no Globe, Sam was in a tiny audience for Taming of the Shrew. By Harrow boys. Directed by a man who sadly didn’t covet my arse so I never got a look on on his shows. I didn’t go to his memorial the other day. Sam though, he saw that strange raw young show in the place where his dreams were finally coalescing. He died in the December of that year. That show happened because of the tradition of an Elizabethan theatre in Speech Room, and Globe Education knowing about it. Now the costumes are mothballed and un-cared for. The pillars are gone, perhaps forever. Speech Room is just … a room for speeches.

I’ve done enough speaking today though. I’m lying back listening to an orchestra in the park playing film themes. They just did Jurassic Park. “There are dinosaurs there are dinosaurs there are din-ooo- saaauuurs!”

I feel like one right now. Another early bed eh? All sorts of parties I could go to. Nah.

I spent the day in The Harrow School Speech Room. There’s this old tradition of turning it into an Elizabethan Theatre. They’ve got rid of the columns now though and mothballed the costumes so we are doing this modern dress, more’s the pity. Toby is clever though. The son of an English teacher who helped ignite my love of Shakespeare – we did As You Like It. I didn’t understand it in the slightest as an acting text through him, but the story made sense and there were lots of interesting little observations. His son is a good director and a good actor. I’m glad he’s flying the flag for this tradition. I’ve been out of the mix for ages as just didn’t have the time or inclination to do it, but I need to learn Marc Antony for The Factory anyway, and there’s nothing like a deadline where an audience is gonna know damn well if you haven’t put the work in.

There on the stage, observed by portraits of some of the better remembered alumni – Churchill, who didn’t enjoy it when he was at school, Jawaharlal Nehru who said that his time at Harrow helped solidify his anti-Imperialism. Various other dignitaries. One of them will play the Soothsayer, his first entrance beneath his portrait. They all stare down over the ranks of chairs as we hack our way. First half today. I’m quiet right up until I have to do Friends Romans Countrymen and then just a bit of shouting and I’m in the pink.

There are plenty of people who have been at this OH game for decades. Ricky Ritchie I remember from when I was a boy. He does a great job at Cinna the Poet. I never felt we made sense of it at The Factory, as our Cinna always seemed to know he was gonna get torn apart. Ricky is playing to win, like we should have been. You find your lessons everywhere.

Late finish though, 9pm. I’m knackered. I’ve run a hot bath as I’m gonna suggest to Toby that my servant might help me with lifting Caesar. There’s no spare flesh on Ollie, he’s skinny and buff. But I’m not gonna fuck my back for the next ten years doing firemans lifts at my old school. I need people to refer to me as “spritely” when I’m eighty. Belly is gonna have to go.

On which subject I bought porridge and bananas and some fish cakes at Tesco. Came out with two bags for less than I might have spent on an oven lasagne and a bottle of wine. This having to watch my food thing might be a good moneysaver, which is for the best because I keep getting emails from my agent to say they’ve taken the pencil off.

Bath is run, and I made myself a chamomile infusion and it is revolutionary. New things. Gotta keep finding them. I’ve largely exhausted the cornucopia of booze options. Ooh a nice cup of flowers in water? Don’t knock it. I feel relaxed and happy.

This whole acid reflux malarkey is getting old now and I’m going to have to admit because of it that perhaps I am as well. Time was I could just run into brick walls. Last night I had a pint while I was watching the old men play fiddle. Didn’t think much about it. Pint of export strength lager on an empty stomach. Then I went and bought a hot Thai curry. “Make it Thai hot please.” They obliged. Pretty much the instant I finished the curry I climbed into bed and slept until 3am when I woke up more bilious than ever. I didn’t want to go back to sleep in case I ended up gargling myself to death so I say up and read until it was time to feed Tessy. Since then I just went about my day in a kind of vague sleepy miasma, occasionally belching. Lou had honey and chamomile tea, which helped, and little turmeric and ginger pills which I pilfered. Gaviscon is too much of a mask now this is a regular affliction. And with the context of last night, I can’t fool myself that it is anything other than the fault of my proclivities. Time, it seems, to adjust things.

Not eating rich food and spicy food washed down with meat and ale, you say? Very well, doctor. How about this Guinea Fowl? No? Hmm.

I went to Café Rust, where I am often to be found over my morning cheese and death plate. I unwillingly ordered myself a granola. Yogurt and fruit and grains. Oh my. I didn’t want a coffee. Wasn’t sure it would stay down.

Lunch was a sweet potato pie with peas and mash. Nothing challenging there. It went down without too much comment. Lou got back to Brighton at 8 and we met at Pompoko. It’s a little cash only family ramen place. I just had a three blandest rice bowl I could find, with chicken on it.

The next year is going to be an adventure as I look after my angry belly by learning how to sustain myself without ingesting lit matches and bat heads of a Tuesday. Anything new is an adventure and abstention is just as much a choice as indulgence, with just as many experiences attached to it. If I’m serious about outliving my dear departed mother and her brother, the next few years will be crucial. I’m not necking vodka out of the bottle, sure. But I’ve got loads still to do. Tristan’s grandad just hit 100. He’s an actor. There’s hope for us all. But I always said I’d ease off at fifty and instead I got sad and started overeating and having silly empty tummy beers.

Sitting in a room waking up while people concentrate all around me for money. That was how the day started. It’s a strange thing to be good at, but I’ve done it on and off for twenty years this invigilating malarkey. I can do it standing on my head.

As soon as I was finished I jumped into Bergie and shifted home. I gave the cats double food – it’ll have to last them until tomorrow. Packed up some underwear. Charger. Toothpaste. Contact lenses. And got in a TRAIN. Only a few quid if you book it in advance and I knew about this. If I wanna go anywhere, Lou has Joni now, her little green car. Chances are tomorrow I’m just gonna lounge by the sea and look at lines. Need to be close to off book on Saturday. I’m not gonna drive everywhere, everything in Brighton is walkable from Kemptown.

I went to The Thomas Kemp briefly for easy food, and they had seven people playing Irish pub music, largely unobserved, doing it for the joy the practice and hopefully some money. Fiddles, mostly. Really evocative and nicely done, but I didn’t want to stay there too long as I don’t get much time with Tessy these days. If I’m gonna be here I’m gonna play with this fluffy idiot even if she’s an attack cat. She just got discombobulated chasing a moth on top of a clothes rail, and when I picked her up and brought her back to stability she considered mangling my calf in recompense. Thankfully she thought better of it as she was pretty stuck. Just didn’t want to admit it. She’s quick, and if she wants to she’ll attach herself with claws and teeth to a soft bit of you. I’ve largely learnt to read the signs but we can’t be on full alert forever.

This flat is peaceful and calm, a real sanctuary for a damaged cat. I’m about to turn in and no need for sleepy drink, I sleep like a log here and a good thing too as Tessy will be up at the first sniff of dawn and will be yelling at me no later than 5.30am. It’s already too late. I’m off to bed so I can enjoy seaside light and a warmer day tomorrow please thank you God.

My dad was very faddy about his health and occasionally I channel him. I wasn’t working today, just absorbing lines and chilling out, so I ventured north to The Kings Road and somehow found myself in Holland and Barrett, which is lethal. All I meant to get was a cup of coffee from the patriotic coffee shop. I ended up with all sorts of gumph.

Bee Propolis. It’s good for your um. It helps with and and. So obviously I bought it. Inflammation? I dunno. Just felt like eating some bees.

Cod Liver Oil. In a capsule nowadays instead of an unwelcome teaspoon attached to grandma. Rebranded as fish oil as we’ve eaten all the cod. It’s good for your brain? Joints? Fish to wash down the bees.

Multi vitamins. That old standard. Buy ’em, eat ’em. As a kid I used to crunch up the cricket ball shaped Sanatogen junior vitamin, a comforting taste still accessible by drinking a grape and ginseng Purdeys. Mum forced me to eat two a day. I volunteer myself to the Purdeys. I like you can still drink it out of glass. Happy to pay the premium.

Vitamin C. We are all supposed to neck one of those bad boys daily aren’t we? Ascorbic acid. Immune system? General useful health stuff.

Collagen. I’m going off piste now. Cowskin to give me luscious cuticles and to make my last remaining three hairs springy like the mane of a buffalo. Beef to balance the fishy bees.

Gut microbe stuff. Why? Pro-biotic nonsense… It was nicely packaged and my gut is misbehaving. There’s calcium in there and kiwi fruit, weirdly. Billions of bacteria. “Friendly” bacteria, according to the bottle, which is mildly horrifying.

Milk Thistle. It won’t magically fix my fatty liver but it might help it heal while I roll away from alcohol in the sharp hope I can try and outlive my mother and my uncle.

I’ve already got Vitamin D. There’s plenty of sun anyway. I’ve filled up my spectacular wheel of pills and now every morning there’s a reason to have breakfast so I can then fill my stomach with the Holland and Barrett madness. Booked a bit of corporate work today so I can be slightly less buttoned up but I’m still worrying about the old wonga. Invigilating tomorrow and then a brief sojourn to the seaside. I feel generally quite dodgy, bilious and fatigued. Early beds, long baths, rest when I can get it and a cornucopia of supplements and I’ll be back to my hyperactive self in no time.

Not now though. Hot bath. Sleepy drink. Zzzz

Ladies. Gentlemen. Everything in between. Please hold a little bit of your wonder aside. I have a tale to tell.

For, once, upon a Teweresstag, the day of Tew/Tyr, the god of war and justice, a thing happenED.

Far far away in the old times, auditions would happen where the humans would be in the rooms, available to each one another, present to read and do communicationes. But then the COVID came bringing fire to all presence and togetherness and LO the self tape prevailēd wherein TRICKSY FUCKKLERETH could fool all the nice ones. And behold Tricksy fuckereth took majority of jobbbes. For the room is being a good room to knaw iff acter be kunt, whereas tayp we cannat knaw but the TRICKES so do SHIEN!

This tag, this Tewestayg, maiself wennet to a Diorama Studio in the central of this towwen.

In stewdeow ai performered an AUDIT-SHEONNE wherin for a Scheottlandish playye off Wilam Shagspar ai pertenndered for being Ross.

Wat iss AMAYYZANNG for shur is for thatt effen iff yes it be a recalling so still it happen in the person and presence of the other humans. Mane yeers gon wee could knaw the acters wee witenessed in werk, they hadd alle bene mett in personne! Not juste an ayejentt given alle clientes blinde! Anned so, this tag, ACETERS WERR WITENESSED FOR AUDIT-SHEONNE. Ringe belles! The anceyentt wayyes comme retorrn.

Mayhaps it wille be jobbe to comefor ich. Man mussen hope and beleeyve despit fukked industree and sheeitt locke foreever.

May thiss be weritten doon forr knawing, wans stil in werreld coms in person AUDIT-SHEONNE for manne and eek wumman also. Stil itt com, and gud peeopul hellpe reeding. Not fergotan be practis off no-screene acter mayk choyce for in reel room. Mayhap in Futur COVID be fergat and memorry be that until meeting sumwan, no way of telling if he is Kunt for making alle show shitte.

Butt… Mayhap otheres knawwen for not beyyen kunt wheras alle for mich iss hopen it iss sene. Behold I do nat knaw this mann but Hull Trucke, Boltone Derby? Soundeth much excellente. Mayhappen it falles well. Ach gott.

Mussen WAAAIIT. Wishen ich nat for wayeteng. Wannet knaw for thraw moneths werk kan bee. Nat for sniffen, aye? Fengers crassed. Knawwen be wannaderfuelll. Butt oneley iff yass!!!

—

Nice to have a real in the room audition again at last. It has literally been years.