AlBarclay

Sheffield on a Saturday night is a sight to be seen. I thought we’d have a lovely contained night in our little parlour. But i hadn’t considered the nature of the Sheffield audience. There is a huge amount of party in this town. We closed our space at a modest 11pm, but we immediately got swept up in madness. Now we are in Kelham Island. Audience members from Sheffield have decided to show us their Saturday night. It’s a good Saturday night, guys. Sheffield rocks.

Right now I’m custodian of a pile of coats while everyone else goes to smoke something that probably isn’t tobacco. That’s fine. I can’t process that stuff so I’ve barely touched it for decades. It’s a good opportunity to get this written down. Even if it’s probably coming across as deeply antisocial. But that’s just a nothing. It was a glorious show tonight so Jack and I are local celebrities in our bubble. But Sheffield is a little less used to alternative people than London…

I’m wearing an audience member’s sequin top as I write this though. She is brilliant fun, and instigated the idea of swapping with me somewhat forcefully. Scrooge had expressed a desire to wear it during the show. He got his wish with a different head on. I walked into a late night Sheffield bar in a remarkable sequin top and was immediately asked by the bar staff to parade down the bar as if it were a catwalk. I did so with gusto and ended up unexpectedly getting a couple of free drinks. Being alternative is still interesting in Sheffield it seems. It’s easier to be so here. In London, “alternative” comprises a grey suit and hatred. It’s worth bearing that in mind as i frolic with my sequins in old steel central. Before Tata.

Boy did I frolic tonight. The “dissipated artist” lobby get their money’s worth, the poor loves. We had a lovely night. I feel fully welcomed into Sheffield now. We went out in Kelham Island, and found all sorts of brilliant places to go. We were taken there by three audience members who were very taken with the idea of showing us a good night. They had been joyfully trying to make Scrooge uncomfortable in the show. One bloke in the audience referred to them afterwards, saying “The people to my right – they clearly never go to the theatre. But they understood it completely.” That bloke was an amdrammer. He had an idea about how audiences should behave. Bless. He had a good night despite that ancient expectation of obedience. And so did the “naughty” people like me.

Thanks to 8 years with so many different possible audiences, Tom Bellerby has got the balance right it seems, and employed the right team to make this show glorious and unbreakable. Thank God. He has made a frame for us to have a proper Christmas show. This is half a decade of joy for me now. What a fine bit of life. This show has brought about my friendship with Brian – (in a time where I said to my my best friend I needed more male friends.). It’s deepened my partnership with Jack so much. And it has glorious effects in the real world. I could never have imagined I’d be in a spangly top surrounded by glorious blurry humans…

But yes. A fab night with the blurs…

Huge great big audience full of women. Jack and I were hopelessly outnumbered on stage, although Sam behind the scenes and all the bar staff were women. It was one of the funnest groups we have ever played to. They were here for the Breast Cancer Uk Christmas Party. Behind the decision to bring them here was a bloody glorious woman with an ammonite necklace who had seen Neverland last year and persuaded people it would be a good choice to see another show by the same company. Lots of audience were very shy and didn’t want to be put on the spot, but we’re used to that. We don’t single people out unless they’re obviously up for it, or if they’re disruptive or late. This lot were not disruptive, they were just gobby in the best possible way. The only way you can be disruptive is if you deliberately break world, as happened occasionally last year: “Excuse me, actors, I’m cold. Can you get someone to get a heater.” Out loud in a very quiet moment as if that were possible and we were the right people to ask. That person can eternally go fuck themselves. Nobody would be so self regarding up here. (Scrooge just told her to go back to hell, and then a producer who was there told her more or less the same.)

We get some great heckles though. Scrooge was told at one point to smash the patriarchy. He also asked in a game of Yes/No whether he was a man, and was told that gender is about presentation and they couldn’t be clear about what he felt internally. When he pressed the issue he discovered he definitely presented as a man and grew excited by a whole world of new ideas.

This lot were being deliberately and brilliantly screwy with Dickensian assumptions. Some of them were giving me so much shit by the end it was hilarious. Scrooge is protectionist and old fashioned, clinging onto safety and afraid of “other”. It’s much nicer when people try to educate him, as it helps him in his cognitive leaps later on. We both had a great fun night tonight, as did the whole audience.

It turns out that we have been very well recommended in The Guardian, which I had no idea about. It was in an alternative What’s On section.

All of our notices have been fab since we kicked off too, so we’ll start packing out now. The woman that flinched when I repeated the Now Then journalist telling me that “Christmastime is about getting shitfaced,” – she wrote one of the most beautifully considered reviews of this show I’ve ever come across, for The Mature Times, and she spelt both of our names right. And the Now Then journalist loved it too despite Scrooge singling her out as the alcoholic…

Afterwards tonight’s crowd showed me screenshots of the Guardian recommendation that had brought them all there. Great that we deliberately party with the audience after the show. We got twenty women to bundle in for a silly video so we could send it to the shows producers, and then I got some of them to do a selfie with Jack and I for this blog.

Doing this show in the North feels like a homecoming. Two shows tomorrow. Lots of people. We are gonna be knackered by the end of it. Bedtime now.

My dreams in this flat are crazy. Jack blames the sheets. Both of us wake up sweating in the night even though we have both switched off our heaters. The cotton sheets soak us to the bone. My Primark Bugs Bunny onesie is all very well, but it’s made out of polydeathylene so if I’m going to wear it I have to open the door to the balcony which breaks the seal and wakes me with kids shouting by my ear. We are next to the university. The bulk of my sleep is on the edge of proper rest, with buzzing and ticking. My mind goes to strange places as I fitfully slumber. This morning I was clinging to the feet of a fire belching gargantuan Godzilla type horror as I jolted warmly into wakefulness. I have vague lucidity in dream, so I had compromised on clinging to its feet when the dream was trying to smush me. I remember finding great beauty watching the city burn on purpose. It’s often me versus my dream, but I can always magic safety.

Our imaginations are so powerful. We can create worlds in our sleep that are more detailed and complex than the worlds we allow ourselves to create in the day. Our dreams don’t care for logic. They are about ideas, image, colour and shape. They break the rules. And so we should when we are awake. My work feeds into this at the moment. Scrooge, surrounded by the names of people that owe him money, like a fat spider at the heart of a web of debt. Of course he wouldn’t have the names written up visibly on a big chalkboard all around his parlour. But how lovely and weird that he does. And people buy into the dream. When they realise I’ll make up a story for any of them, they start to ask again and again. “What about Chalvington Belk?” And it’s fun to talk about current affairs through the prism of these names.

Our imagination has edges based on the things we have consumed. As a child I voraciously read. At 10 I was in Earthsea. At 11 I’d finished Tolkein down to The Lays of Beleriand. If JK Rowling had been around I’d have bitten her hand off, the absolute legend that she is for fat books that kids read. She’s Ursula le Guin for a wider audience, even if nothing will ever beat Earthsea for me. But I was consuming hard and fast and it made my dreams insane. I was burning through Narnia at 8. My parents couldn’t keep up and were spending so much money on books. I don’t remember not being able to read. I do remember getting slightly passive aggressive with my teachers when they wanted me to read “Ted goes to the beach” out loud.

Reading was a huge part of my downtime. I’ve covered a wide pantechnicon. But I’m not reading like I used to.

I remember when my mum stopped reading books I started worrying. I started buying her books I loved. I even bought her The Fountainhead… (She loved the doctrine of the individual, and creativity. She subscribed to The Daily Mail. Ayn Rand is a great example of right wing libertarianism in story.)

I haven’t bought that Kindle yet, but I can’t wake up in the morning and start with these constant articles about Trump or Brexit, even reduced into video form now. These affairs are nothing in the context of history, of the world, of the dreamlike capabilities of our endless imaginations. I’m going back to words. I have to. We learn more from history than we do from now. Now is flow, as we all try to adapt, affect and comprehend. We can learn from people with similar concerns but different contexts. I will buy a kindle tomorrow. I’ll probably start with Earthsea again, but you beautiful regular readers – throw me your favourite books.

And yeah. Perhaps Jack and his Kindle is my inspiration. Just perhaps I’ll allow that he’s affected my thinking. Maybe… Harrumph.

We got home early tonight. This IKEA flat has constant chatter. The living room is bright and artificially hot, and there’s a fridge that moans and grumbles so loudly that I hear it in my bedroom. I’ve just pulled it away from the wall as it had been pushed right against it. Perhaps that’ll quieten it down a little from now on.

Now I’m on the sofa, overlooking this balcony view of night time Sheffield.

Our audience tonight was boutique and adorable. There was one Scottish man there who is 100% the nicest man I’ve ever met. He was holding a beautiful conversation with my character about the nature of love and happiness, and the things that are important in life. I was genuinely moved by the intelligence and simplicity with which he tried to bring Ebenezer out of his protectionism. And he utterly treated me like a fragile real person. These conversations are part of why this is a job that I always love to return to. As people explain these things to Scrooge you feel them reconfirming it for themselves. Scrooge understands through them that it’s never too late to shift out of habitual pain patterns. They understand the same for themselves through Scrooge. It’s a two way mirror.

Jack and I have remembered the detail of our working shorthand once again. It’s become so deep, the ability we have to eloquently communicate with each other in great detail using just a flash of an eye. We can have detailed silent conversations. “The book’s over there,” “Someone’s had the bloody stool – don’t get thrown we’ll solve it live!” “I forgot to open the wardrobe – find a reason to do it as I can’t now the focus is on me!” If I was writing this in a respected newspaper someone would send me in to Luvvies in Private Eye for trying to claim I’m psychic. But there is a symbiosis that has developed over time into a deep partnership, and it’s terrific fun when it’s running to feel that connection and ride the wave of it.

But now we are finally properly open, the question of downtime comes into play. I didn’t bring much up with me. I took my Camino rucksack with a few changes of clothes, 3 different tarot packs, a shiny shell and my iPad. No books. I’m sorely tempted to buy a Kindle while I’m up here. Now we are open there’s time to read and explore. Sheffield is an ace town, but it’s also good to curl up with a book and I think a Kindle might be a solution for my itinerant lifestyle. Someone just paid 50 into my bank and I think it might be blog related. I can gamble that into a portable library. Now we are open and pressed we can take our foot off the accelerator a bit, and there are many books still to read. We will still have to do some serious reworking if we sell out to fit in everybody. But the first full house isn’t until this weekend. And I’m finally beginning to feel like I have space in my head again.

It’s press night tonight, and a full house. I’m feeling weightless and rested after a day off. I’m sending minimum one email every day to industry people based in the North. Today I invited the casting director of Emmerdale! Can’t do any harm and it’s exactly the sort of thing I haven’t done for years. Most of these emails will get lost in the bundle of “make me famous” types, but one email might convert to a meeting, to employment, to delights. Tomorrow I’ll write to The Crucible – (the main theatre in Sheffield). Probably for them it’s more likely they’ll cast in London. Still, you have to put energy out into the world or it doesn’t come back to you and I’m not fucking around anymore. And it’s “press night”. So here goes.

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So. I have no idea what the South Yorkshire Knitting Times made of our show. Or the Sheffield Rocking Horse Post.

The press are a pernicious lot with theatre. The night we did tonight was called “press night”, and the show we did was a lovely show where lots of people got free food and booze. The hope is that those people will go on to write pleasant things and consequently fill the house with humans. We still get paid regardless. Their bullshit affects whether or not we get to come back next yeat.

It’s an annoying dynamic, seeking validation when you already know the show works – and in this instance it just … does.

Why have a night where we blow smoke up people’s arses in the hope they will reciprocate? Nothing. They haven’t sold it enough. That’s the issue. I lose nothing but fun if you don’t show up as audience. I want fun to be a thing . A reviewer tonight told Scrooge that Christmas was about “getting shitfaced.” I fed that back to the crowd, as is my job, and noticed one of the other potential nightmare reviewers flinching. I think it was the head of Sheffield Hedgehog Carer’s Newscast. I’ll doubtless find out tomorrow. I’ll never work with hedgehogs again.

I really wanted to make it Christmassy for the audience, but it was hard to keep positive when you’re with an audience who all self-identify as reviewers. Everyone was skipping over the surface. Connection was very hard.

I love writing, and I love theatre. I’m extremely good at both disciplines, in an uncomplicated fashion. Jack and I smashed it tonight. But I honestly don’t think I’ve ever played a more artificial audience. Tonight is the first night I have EVER witnessed Marley’s first “Merry Christmas” being met with absolute silence. (He very quickly changed that of course and got them all involved.)

“Impress me.”

I honestly hope that the good people of Sheffield Flatulence Monthly enjoyed our show. It’s a lovely way to spend an evening. You get a show and a meal, and the price point is literally half of what the same show was in London. There’s no way in hell it would still exist, bearing in mind the logistical nightmares, if it was anything other than an important and delightful show.

I have a few political names on the vast debt board. Everyone wanted a piece of them. It’s important to be able to bring in politics, but we had Rees Mogg, Bojo the Clown and Nigel Garage in one night. I didn’t want to get political on press night so I just dissociated them into vague versions of themselves. I was trying to keep it clear of rant despite an extremely political list. Then the third pick was Nigel Garage. I probably should’ve asked for a fourth, because it was literally just a conspiracy of writers seeing how I’d cope. But I smelt copout so he became an unfortunate orphan boy, instead of a dark divisional fringe politician. I told a story and tried to make him a goodie with an unfortunate name, and then I got them all to encourage me to free him. I am curious to know where writey people went headwise in their subjective attempts to rationalise their experience. I strongly suspect that they all had a corking time, but we do have to deal with the Sheffield Small Glass Object Appreciation Newsletter. Whatever they thought is largely irrelevant anyway from my perspective, as I know for certain after half a decade that the press release won’t have my name on it. I just wish I had enough profile that could sell tickets for my own past…

This morning when we woke we were going to have a long day off, free of obligation. Then an email landed checking that everything was “still good” for Jack and I to do a two hour long live Radio Sheffield spot talking to Majid Majid – the remarkable Lord Mayor of Sheffield. We had both ignored this obligation in favour of thinking about other things. Suddenly our day off was a little less … off. But a lot more interesting.

I got up and got out in the morning. Sleep was in short supply, strangely, and I wanted to explore Kelham Island – our local area. We won’t be in Sheffield for long, and it’s a town full of history. The biggest issue I had this morning, frankly, was that I had to be on BBC in the evening. No chance of sampling all the real ales and craft beers here in the “real ale capital of the world,” according to Majid.

We were partnered with two other makers in Sheffield – Kitty and Hassun.

Kitty makes music, and sings with “Speed for Lovers,” works for Mencap and does a podcast for autistic kids. Hassun does a scientific podcast, he’s evidently full to bursting with interesting facts, and he looks very much like Mo Salah.  And Majid is brilliant. He was straightforward and smart and not self important despite being made Lord Mayor of Sheffield at 28. That lack of self importance is the single quality that I look to in authority figures. Expectation of respect based on notional status is a huge turnoff for me. We are all playing let’s pretend here, and worldwide right now the people who have the plastic crowns are setting fire to everything. If there’s a 28 year old with an honorific who is trying to make things better, I’m behind that. I am so utterly fed up of seeing politicians putting their JOB before the thing they should be doing for work. These dogshit humans who have never had perspective but have had privilege… They’re like some of the fools I went to boarding school with. Pointless, cruel and ultimately dangerous. We are actually literally killing the world to line their pockets. Sure, nature will survive and perhaps it’s for the best that we find a way to wipe out a huge chunk of humanity. But I’d sooner avoid it, despite having no children, because it seems like a lot of misery for something that we might still be able to prevent if we can just destabilise corporate greed.

But you can tell my mind is in the show. Scrooge’s journey is from terrified and damaging self interest to a wider perspective. He was visited by three spirits, and changed his ways over the course of one night. Some of his reasons are selfish, but he cares for Cratchett and for Tiny Tim. It’s the season to realise that no matter how far we think we are gone, there’s always a chance of redemption.

If any of you know any spirits, we need to get them to work overtime with this particular rolling cabinet of frantic ambitious sociopaths. You never know what might be buried under the varnish on some of their faces. They might  have good hearts that have just learnt from the culture to pretend to be robotic. Surely this landscape can change. Majid is a torchbearer. Bring it.

Sheffield.

I barely know the town, but here I am. I’ll be here for a few weeks. Up until now it’s been work to sleep to work to sleep. Tomorrow we have our day off. Monday. The actor’s weekend.

People here are good. The audiences have been solid, involved, grounded and fun. There’s been none of that London “impress me” shit. They’re coming out to have a good time, and they bloody well do. The faces and bodies of people here are often somehow deeper. People look and feel inhabited. And everyone is looking at and talking to each other. In London there’s a disconnect that you barely notice until you spend time in the North, where the woman that takes your money for coffee continues a conversation you started three days ago because she remembers your face and wants to pass the time.

We have made Scrooge’s Parlour in the corner of an old Carpet Right, and every night we fill it with warmth, song, food and fun. We are officially finished with the build now, but an inevitable consequence of the actors building their own set is that we’ll be adding tricks and details throughout the run. It’s rare and special to have that freedom. Jack and I keep experimenting and detailing, shifting and changing. This Sheffield space is great for that as it was a blank canvas when we arrived. The audiences are not packed out yet, which is just as well as we literally couldn’t seat them if they were. They’re willing though. Last night there was a lad who never goes to theatre. He came, dragged by his wife, and loved it so much he got tickets over the bar for his parents to come today. I put his dad on the debt board and they were front and centre in the Sunday matinee.

The director was able to come and see the show last night. Thankfully he enjoyed it. The bulk of his notes were exactly what we needed – a skilled outside eye. He was bringing candles into scenes so that our faces were visible, adjusting the timing of tricks and lighting levels and so forth. Technical stuff, and a few old reminders – particularly that we shouldn’t rush the sentimental stuff. We end up rushing it every year because it doesn’t seem to have intention. But we do it because we are modern actors looking for action and movement and forgetting that back then it was common to just sit in a sentiment for a while. By the time it comes, we’ve earned it. There’s a section in Christmas Past that is just Dickens’s words, basically in monologue form, delivered by me with a candle for approximately twenty years. One man with a candle speaking Dickens. I guess Callow can do it every year for an extraordinary fee. Someone will have to carry that baton when his liver finally succumbs. I might as well get my practice in now, and hope that Richard Curtis starts making movies again and casts me so I’m well enough positioned in a few decades time to stand and read a book for thousands of quid.

Here’s hoping. Right now it’s bed. G’night.

Here I am in my bugs bunny onesie, surrounded by artists. Two show day today, and the director is up to watch it. He’s not been on hand so much this year so it’s golden when we get him. He will be sleeping on our bare Ikea sofa tonight. Brian did it the other night, but Brian will sleep in a hole full of dogshit and tell you he slept beautifully. Tom will probably end up in bed alongside either me or Jack. I’m angling for Jack by playing the “man most likely to snore loudly” card. I won’t remind him that I’ve been in albergues for the last few weeks. I’ll play the “forever single” card. And cry while I’m doing it.

It’s so lovely to be up north with this show. We had one guy who is sending his dad tomorrow. He has worked out when I will go running outside and he intends to be there in the car park to be a little orphan boy. He even persuaded me to put his dad in Scrooge’s debt board. I love that board.

It represents five years of me collecting silly Dickensian names and turning them into narrative. It has become a huge silent partner. There are audience members that disproportionately adore it. It’s a delight, that the contents of my head give so much pleasure, augmented by five years worth of my #SillyDickensianNames hashtag on Twitter. Like all theatre it’s a group effort and there are some wordgeeks who I’ve never met who have added layers to this show. Names like “Horrible Grunting,” “Lady Chlamydia Vicegrip,” “Volumnia Soake,” “Absorbent Biscuits”… It’s always better with multiple imaginations.

I’m so happy up here tonight. Jack and I are in our ridiculously new apartment. Tom is sitting to my left. He’s made this show every year for 8 years now. Now he’s in London validated big style by our industry. He’s the running assistant director at The Donmar Warehouse, which is a tiny theatre but positioned in the industry in such a way as to get high faluting celebrity attention and guaranteed full houses pretty much no matter what. Rebecca is sitting opposite me. She wants a tarot reading, so I’ll do that when I’m done writing to you lot. But I’m home. Working as an actor. Surrounded by friends. Happy and looked after. And I’m going to take a free pass on my 500 word minimum. Because I want to enjoy being with the people I’m with…

First show done. I’m back home. Jack and I have spent the last couple of hours squabbling about absolutely nothing, as you’d perhaps understand from friends who have worked together for so long. It’s extraordinary in the true sense of the frame of theatre to be able to follow a friendship through so many different permutations and colours. At the start of this madness of a friendship, we worked together by chance. We were doing Shakespeare in Yorkshire. Hester and Liam were footing the bill with Sprite. I still miss it. We were Malvolio and Feste under the guidance of Lucy Kerbel. We could never have anticipated the years of collaboration that followed. The world kept throwing us together. It seemed inevitable. Now we work with each other on purpose when we can. We trust each other deeply. And we complement each other well – we are very different, but with similarities at heart.

I’m sitting here in a Bugs Bunny Onesie thinking about what worked and what didn’t, tonight. He’s worried that the cheap scran we bought might give us food poisoning. But I need to switch off fast after what we did tonight so I’ll wind down.

What did we do tonight? Well… Stuff.

We built Srooge’s Parlour into an old Carpet-Right in Sheffield. It’s a Theatre Deli space now, and it’s glorious.

We are so accommodated by the people who work at Deli, and tonight the bulk of the audience all stayed in the space to hang out with us.

Five years, I’ve done this. It’s hard to quantify. It would be easy to say it all blurs into one, but it doesn’t. I’m going to be out there, playing Scrooge. But what is that for me? It’s employment, sure. I’m bloody marvelous at it. But that’s because I understand the version of Scrooge’s journey that makes sense to me. We can all Scrooge ourselves. My understanding is of someone who just can’t do the social stuff. He can be totally brilliant with numbers and investments but if anyone wants to know his favourite anything, the question makes no sense unless someone can teach him how.

This run will be glorious. We have been able to build what we choose. We will move to York for the final week, and lose all of the detail we have built. We will shift into a space where we have to be so careful that we are waiting to hear whether we can fire the smoke at all. We have to work around oil paintings of ancient dead people. It’s touch and go about whether the status quo monitors think the deadies are important enough for them to stop our negligible ambient smoke to preserve their faceshrines. We will see. The space looks beautiful. We will make whatever we can.

But right now I’m done. Too late. Too much. Two shows tomorrow and it’s past 3… I must sleep.

I’m wearing two different hats. Actor and Stage Manager. (Any stage managers that knew me of old will find that jarring. Yes, I’m looking at you.)

Today I’ve been building the space for actor Al to roam free. Jack and I are just … getting stuck in, as always. Many hands make light work. We know this show, and the director can’t be on site because he is busy at The Donmar. Creative acting stuff is harder to detail without him. No real point rehearsing. So mostly Jack and I are creating a space for the show and working out the tricks and world changes and practicalities and dressing. We are laying the foundations for ourselves to play the show. We’re world building.

We have our first show tomorrow. The set looks brilliant. We have an amazing small team. Three of us at the core – a new show runner but I haven’t her permission and I won’t blog her without.

Last year’s snags are covered though. There’s heating in the venue so no audience members will be moaning about the temperature. The electricity isn’t going to be a problem. No dogshit from nocturnal guard dogs. No portaloos or exploding water tanks. We have sightlines. I’m not worried about it.

But it’s unusual for the leading actor to be wiring hazers the day before opening night, and thinking about sightlines and all that. Traditionally I should be burrowing up my own asshole.

I slipped into my assistant director mode today to call the tech. Someone had to temporarily do basic talking and run the room. “Is everyone ready” “so we are going from X line” etc. In theatre I’ve never really liked the separation of people into closed jobs. Of course I’m happy to work in a job where I’m closed off as an actor – I understand that dynamic and it means I get to go home really early in rehearsal, and get lots of clapping when it’s open. But theatre is group storytelling. It’s a team thing.

Skills take time to learn. Training helps of course. But everyone gets protective of their “area”. I trained as an actor. While watching actors I have to monitor myself when I see people who aren’t taking care of what I think of as “the basics.” I often shout at people who are lying on cheap TV. But why should “the basics” cost three years of time and money? You can learn not to be a twat on the job (which is “the basics”) even if you’re beautiful – as long as your mind is open and you can let go of your own shit when necessary.

I’m learning stage management on the job as best I can. I have been by osmosis for decades. I’m always curious. We are making theatre. That’s a passion. Theatre is many skills, many people, much passion, no money. Yeah, sometimes you can hit a zeitgeist and make something huge. But Jerusalem is rare despite all of us pilgrimaging to it. Mostly we just tell the truth in a corner and hope there’s someone listening. Why? Because we are a beautiful bunch of geeks. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m a lead character actor. But I have a growing hat collection.

The first time I was “acting ASM” was maybe a decade ago. It was a tour. We had to build a load of flats and repoint the lights in different venues and work around whatever we had to work around. It was an eye opener. I’ll never forget the moment where an actress who is still a respected close friend walked in and immediately complained about a door that was clipping on a rake. (A rake is when a stage slopes towards the audience. Some old theatres are raked like ski slopes. Richmond Yorkshire. Margate. It makes the actors look like giants, if they are “upstage”. But it’s a bugger for doors.)

We had taken that door off three times and planed as much as was rational so it could open at all before the company came in  She arrived and behaved like we hadn’t noticed because it scuffed a tiny bit. It was the deepest rake we had built on, the deepest we were going to build on. Any more off and we’d have a gap under the door for every other venue. We had weighted the flat as well, to raise it. I learnt a lot about being an actor from observing my friend as she said “Come on, you just need to take the door off and plane it down.”

… I’m being technical. The point is, if you’re making theatre you’re probably not there to be famous or rich. You might pull  that off But at heart you’re there to make theatre. And theatre is multidisciplinary. Much more interesting to understand the lot, so when the machine is turning you know exactly what your cog has to do.

I’m going to have a ball this month, and probably write lots more stuff like this. But my head is in my craft again, and I like it being there. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.