AlBarclay

“You have to eat the Easter cake otherwise you aren’t a christian, and you won’t go to heaven.”

I’m supposed to be on a diet. I don’t really believe in heaven, and if I did then I wouldn’t be expecting to go there. I do believe in hedging my bets though, and I like cake. Pascal’s wager. Maybe it’ll buy me some heavenpoints. Today was a little bit of a break from the stricture of the diet, inevitably. I went round my carnivorous brother Max’s house: “There’s no veg, Max” “Yes there is – we’re cooking potatoes.”

First thing uncles have to do is Easter bunny duty. Hundreds of eggs in a small garden. It takes ages to hide that many eggs, and the children snatched most of them up in minutes. It was like watching three howling cyclones. Rather than searching in things, they caught on that knocking them over would probably make all of the eggs fall out and then they could scoop them off the floor. As I watched them I wondered how Easter got tangled up with eggs. If the Easter Cake is so important to orthodox Russians that I had to eat a bit even on a diet, what is the significance of the eggs?

Well first it’s a rebirth thing I suppose. This time of year is all about fertility. Eggs are new life. Bunnies are shagging and breeding all the time. Both are pertinent symbols for the beginning of Spring. It’s not long before everyone dances round a phallus singing songs. The early Christians quickly caught on that the best way to stamp out rival religions is to absorb their customs and change their significance a little. It’s strange that there was all that furore about “Easter” not being on the poster for egg hunts. Where does the word come from anyway?

The Dark Ages are dark because very little was written down. People were mostly illiterate. We were an oral tradition. In an oral tradition, there are people who are the carriers of stories – Skalds and Bards etc. They were brought up from an early age to understand and be able to pass on the the tales that inform the culture they work in. Home grown myths are the best for understanding the needs of the place they’re grown in. All the old Testament stories regarding saving a portion of your crops against famine etc are preserved warnings based on hard lessons. The Romans and subsequent conquerors and witch hunters ensured that anyone who was able to pass on our oral traditions died with their stories. All that remain are scatterings, and old wives tales, and the feast days superstitions and customs – observed more clearly than they are understood. There are probably things we can do with our native plants that were discovered through years of trial and error that we will never know. One of the only reasonably reliable sources we have for what was happening back then is a monk called Bede who set himself up as a chronicler. He claims that “Eostre” was a German fertility goddess symbolised by a rabbit. That would certainly key into the whole business of spring and rebirth and fertility. But with him as the only source it’s easy to discredit it.

With some excellent symbolic thinking, my brother cooked a lamb. I didn’t eat it though – I have to draw the line at red meat for now. My own (equally arbitrary) superstitions and observances got in the way. The cake was enough. I had a plate of hastily heated up frozen peas with potatoes and looked longingly at my 14 year old nephew as he paraded around the kitchen wielding the entire bone, occasionally pausing to try to bite through it in order to suck out the marrow, and finally attacking it with tools once he accepted that his teeth would go before the bone went.

Lovely to spend a day with my family in Eostremonath, and hang out with the kids. I’m gasping for chocolate now though…

Last night was spent in a barn with 50 strangers. There was a lot of live music and singing, and we were participating in a ceremony. One woman had a huge gong and was able to play on it exquisitely. Because I was there as part of an ongoing healing process that I have embarked upon this year (and this blog is part of it too) then I don’t want to talk about the details of my experience. The easiest thing to say is that I found it extremely valuable and powerful.

Afterwards I walked for hours down a canal. I wasn’t really sure where I was going, or why. I just wanted to walk in nature.

A man called Francis had recommended it to me. He had two beautiful dogs, (you can just see him and the dogs in the right of the picture). I was inclined to take his word for it as he seemed the type to do a lot of walking. It was a great. If I hadn’t had my rucksack on I would probably have ended up in Birmingham, but once I started to notice it was feeling heavy I got out google maps and ended up on a bus to Wembley Park from somewhere in Middlesex. We went through Pinner, where I used to look after old people as part of the community outreach of my school. There was a man called Mister Dyke. When I was 14 me and Dan would see him every Tuesday, and every Tuesday he would say “I didn’t know YOU were coming today.” We would pull out weeds from his garden. He never had the heating on but he always had all four hobs on full. He told us that this was because he got his gas subsidised but not his electricity. I didn’t know if he was right or not, but I was always worried he was going to blow himself up.

We went past the bottom of the hill where my school still lies. The bus went through the bus stop where Dan and I would wait after visiting him. I thought about that kid. I wondered if he’d recognise this “adult” sitting in the same seat in the bus, who still thinks it is a good use of his time to stay up all night meditating and singing with a load of strangers, and then go for a pointless walk for hours just because. He probably would.

Getting home was a great though, especially after only a couple of hours fitful sleep. I feel rested but I know my body will thank me for a proper sleep tonight. The brilliant thing is, the weekend has barely begun, what with this Easter malarkey and the extra day. Although a bank holiday means sod all in theatreland. I want to sort my flat out, and get some bags down from the attic, as I’m still in a jobhole and need to make sure my time isn’t wasted. Plus there’s likely things I can sell for a few bob if I’m organised with ebay. Old computer games and so on.

Since I got home Brian and I have just chilled out in each other’s company, cooked for each other, and shared a happy lazy Saturday. Sometimes that’s all you need to make the day complete – companionship and relaxation.

All this stuff about the chocolate cake and the wrong country. It makes me very uncomfortable. I’ve tried to avoid politics so far in this blog apart from an occasional little rant. I’m sure I’m going to be roundly educated about all the things I’ve got wrong. But here’s my take on the cake.

It’s theatre. Xi Jinping is having dessert with a maniac. “Oh you gotta try the chocolate cake, it’s just the best.” Xi humours the maniac. He takes a little slice. He eats it. That’s the cue that the guys have been waiting for, stationed there by the maniac. “Isn’t the cake just the best cake?” says the maniac. Xi continues to humour him thinking *What the fuck is wrong with this guy?*. “Yes, the cake is good.” he says. And on cue a bunch of aides interrupt. They’ve been told to. “Oh excuse me a moment…” *mutter mutter mutter* “Well that was a surprise. I’ve just this second unexpectedly given the order to bomb Syria. Would you like some more cake.”

Missiles must have a shelf life. May as well fire them off if they’re approaching it. The fact that loads of them didn’t reach their target implies they were on the way out. Then later on when interviewed by Fox, maniac gets the name of the country wrong. “Iraq” he says before he is corrected. He doesn’t care or know. “One of those middle eastern places” is as far as he is capable of differentiating. Maybe not even as detailed as that. “One of those muslim places.” But it was never about where the missiles were fired. It was about the theatre of firing them just after getting Xi to say “Nice chocolate cake.” Big happy inconsequential positive, news comes in, total change. It’s a very old storytelling device. Because he may be a maniac, a dolt and a sociopathic narcissist but he’s not an idiot. He’s clumsily sending the signal that he is a dangerous man of action. A clumsy one. Which lends weight to whatever veiled threats he had been making, and is followed up by mobilising his fleet towards North Korea. What human cost?

He’s not playing politics as politics, he’s playing it as business. But he’s playing it with so many nukes in his arsenal that he could wipe out humanity. He is also playing it, most likely, with the childlike and probably incorrect belief that whatever defence system there is in the US will catch the nukes out of the sky over America. And without the understanding of global climate that would inform him that blowing everybody else up, even if he does shoot out all the nukes aimed at him, is still going to be disastrous for him.

This is posturing and positioning. He fired about $60 million worth of tomahawks into a geographical area he doesn’t really understand or care about in order to make a point to a man he thinks of as his business rival. Even if, as I suspect they were, the missiles were disintegrating, there is still a huge human cost that he will never lose sleep about from the ones that exploded.

What makes a good businessman? I would argue a total lack of empathy comes very high up. Ideally coupled with the ability to mimic empathy. It’s no surprise that David Icke arrived at reptiles when he was constructing a conspiracy theory about the illuminati. Crocodile tears. Reptiles are a good animal model for the sort of sociopath that seems to be inevitably bubbling up at the top of many of the major economies in the world. Ability to shed skin, total unstoppable hunger, immunity to feeling, ability to blend in. The problem is, total catastrophic failure in business doesn’t usually have a global effect – although the recession might argue otherwise. If there is total catastrophic failure in any of Trump’s power plays, the global consequences are vast. He can’t just declare bankruptcy and start again with a new planet a few years later.

I’m getting more and more worried about what is going to happen with this guy. America can still be first if most of the globe is irradiated, and at heart I fear the maniac thinks “If I’m ok, everything is ok.”

I’m off to the countryside for a weekend of contemplation, so I’m writing this in the morning before leaving and scheduling it. I can’t have chocolate cake or I’d be wolfing the stuff.

I’m on a 19 bus across town. It’s a beautiful spring evening, if a little chilly. It’s London. There’s so much variation, streetlife, colour. And yet since my friend disembarked five stops ago all I’ve done is cycle through social media on my phone. There’s the beginnings of a sunset struggling through the clouds to my right. All the Londoners are free from their chains for the rest of the day. If I look out of the window even for a moment I see massive variety in this crackling mass of people. So many different stories. They all have their way of walking, their gestures, their tics, their pain, their happiness. I could easily spend the journey observing, wondering, enjoying, extrapolating, dreaming through them.

Instead I’ve been consuming other people’s lives through my phone. It’s a malaise. I say, even though you might be doing the same with mine. These devices are amazing. It’s great how social media helps us stay connected with people we shared joy with once. But if I’m not careful I can get stuck in a consumption spiral. I suspect it must be the same for many people.

As someone who frequently makes grand gestures, I suppose I could just cut it all out for a predetermined period of time and come back with a different view on it. I’m wondering if that’s necessary, however. Surely there must be a way of regulating it – catching it when we get in a spiral. Some people can multitask and read their phone while having a conversation. If I look into my phone it slurps me into itself right away. If I’m with someone they usually immediately notice I’ve vanished and hound me back.

My nephew has made an app which nudges you when you’ve been on whichever site is your poison for too long. You can set the limit. “After 40 minutes on Facebook, nudge me.” I haven’t downloaded it yet so I have no idea if it works. But the fact he made it gives me pause.

When I was 18 only dickheads had mobile phones. “What are you expecting that’s so important it can’t wait until you’re home?” Expectation and culture has shifted now though. “If i don’t reply to that email quickly that job might go elsewhere.” It’s fucked though if we’re constantly messaging Tom while sitting with Dick and Harry, and messaging Dick and Harry when sat with Tom. But a lot of us are.

We need a code of etiquette. Technology has overtaken manners. There’s no commonly accepted social code apart from “Put your phone away” “But I’m waiting on a job!” “It can wait.” “No it can’t.” When I’m on my own though? I guess we have to parent ourselves. I don’t have much of a television habit, as I was strictly regulated as a kid to the extent that it exists in my unconscious as an occasional luxury rather than an essential wind-down. I think I’m going to try and throttle back my consumption as if I were my own parents regulating me, and break the hand to phone instinct. I can wear a watch. I can wait a little while for the news that Spielberg wants me to have his baby. When I finally acquiesce he’ll be all the more excited. I don’t have to cling to every buzz in case it’s the buzz that will solve my money worries. I’ll make that buzz myself and I’ll choose when I do it.

Meanwhile that was my bus stop. I am now walking down the street writing this. There could be a dragon in the sky above me for all I’m aware. There might be a herd of engineers. Or elephants depending on your typing app. Time to put this in my pocket, look at the sunset and muse on what has been a good solid inconclusive ramble.

I think I need to have an early bed. All this excitement is a little too much for me and I’m not accustomed to eating as little as I have recently. I read 10 plays today for the writers. Thankfully they weren’t full length. The only directorial note we got was “Be strong and wrong.” No time for more than that. Sightreading with a room full of strangers to a room full of strangers, and a licence to play. My first part was God. Then there was a selection of dads and doctors, the captain of the titanic, a weird homeless guy who makes friends with a child, and Tweedledum. Then I walked home and met up with an old friend.

Anne-May is connected to a fellowship of actors that I work with from time to time in Amsterdam. A few years ago I was asked a number of times to go to Amsterdam and do little bits of corporate theatre for Sol lager -(it’s owned by Heineken). They wanted to rebrand, and as far as I understand they needed hispanic looking people to say “Espiritu Libre” and have beards. I wasn’t going to complain, considering the amount of party that was happening around us. These branding events are essentially an excuse for everyone who works on the product to get pants down sloshed and run around in beautiful places. I ran with the wolves for a while. I apparently signed my name to a poster that said “We are the 1%”, as there was a photo on my phone the next day. I went home with a lovely leather jacket and a stain.

Since I was in Amsterdam anyway it made sense to make some theatre outside the corporate world. I had to work in the evenings so the traditional Amsterdam pursuits were out. An opportunity to make theatre presented itself. There’s a company out there that does Shakespeare in english. They work on similar principles to the old Factory Hamlet game over here – the actors learn multiple parts, and the exact casting is determined by a game of chance played a minute before the show starts. They call themselves “The Dutch Factory.” (For those of you wondering what The Factory is I’ll inevitably dedicate a blog to them before long. Right now it’s easter sabbatical. But here is the website. They’ve been a big part of my life for years now.)

The Dutch Factory heard I was coming over, and I got an email asking me which parts I knew in Midsummer Night’s Dream. Two days after listing the ones I thought I could get away with, I was playing Oberon on my Sunday off on a mosquito infested lighthouse island in Ijmuiden. I can’t really remember how it played out. You just have to lock into your partner and let the text work, and solve any problems in the moment.  I occasionally look back and think “What the fuck happened that day?” It was very very hot. I know I carried a small dutch boy around for a while, as he volunteered himself as the changeling. I know I sang a song on a moving boat and everyone hummed along. There was a crocodile. I had pair of binoculars. I made someone eat a clove of garlic. I lost some blood to flying monsters. I did a lot of running. And I made some friends. One of those friends was Anne-May, who played Puck. We were constantly surprising and challenging each other when the mosquitos weren’t trying to kill us. Also she was a little more familiar with the play and helped me out all the times I said “Ok that’s done, what the fuck is my next scene?” We stayed in touch.

Sometimes these one day jobs lead to friendships. The fellowship of actors, which I touched upon yesterday, is wide but focused. When you find a kindred spirit, the gods find ways to make sure you keep in each other’s lives. She’s working in Westminster on Shakespeare within the Abbey soon so she’s staying on my sofa for a few nights. She has already fed me, and It’s half past ten, and I think I’m going to pass out if I stay up any longer. here’s the only photo I took today. It’s Anne-May at Westminster Cathedral. Spot the actor.

I’m knackered. zzzzzz

87. London just keeps on being surprising. I’m back in my old well trodden role of “We’ve lost an actor. Al’s always game. Ring him.” The part this time was John “I am the self consumer of my woes” Clare. He was a poet, contemporary with Byron, largely in his shadow. He spent much of his life in various asylums with some form of psychosis. He genuinely thought he was Shakespeare for a while. He was a tortured genius, with himself as his own worst enemy.  I have no idea why they thought of me for him. Ahem.

We were reading the script at The House of St Barnabus. How the hell have I never seen that place before? It’s a corner building just off Soho Square. It’s huge and filled with art, Chesterfields and people thinking. Some bloke in the 1800’s bequeathed the property for the benefit of the homeless.

They run it as a gorgeous members-only club, but not for profit. All the money goes towards helping the homeless of Soho. That’s got to be a full time job these days. I’ve no idea how much it costs to join, it’s almost certainly out of my reach, but I asked them to email me anyway. There’s a fucking massive autumnal Green Man on one of the walls that they’re flogging for 15 grand. I’ll come back and get it when I’ve got my mansion. I love it.

The play we were reading was a deep funny weird piece, and as is so often the case with this job, I met a load of strangers and almost immediately we all had to jump into each others hearts for a day, then say goodbye and go elsewhere. You have these intense experiences with people and then they’re gone and maybe you don’t see them for years. Paterson, who played my editor John Taylor, had a load of full on scenes with me and had to leave immediately we finished to spend time with his son. If we hadn’t had lunch together I’d know nothing about him. This job makes you one heck of a team player. And now all these new hearts are somehow part of the ever expanding fellowship of lovely actors that coalesces in every actor’s life over time. One day I’ll work with some or all of them again but for now we’ll all ping pong elsewhere.

After we were done, since I was in Soho, I went to dig out another member of my fellowship in long standing. Maddy and I have laughed together a few times now in joyful shows. She had been singing in Soho and I’m accustomed enough to not drinking to go to a dive bar sober. We went to Gerry’s where I nursed my water as people around me got into tremendous arguments about Byron. Was his work beautiful enough to justify his actions? Should we divorce the artist from the art? Were his actions in Greece enough to allow us to forgive his philandering? I’ve always had a suspicion I’d dislike the man if I met him. I’m yet to be bowled over by his verse but I’ve not spent time with it and my context is obviously screwy as he’s long dead.

The whole time I was in Gerry’s I never felt the pull of the bar. Which taught me that it’s possible to have a free night in Soho. An old friend from Holland was there as well, and a director I only met last week. After working I usually need to wind out the adrenaline. After reading John Clare it made sense to wind down by sitting underground trash talking Byron.

Here’s one of his poems. It’s angry. But he was banged up in an asylum for 20 years which would do for anyone. And nobody bothered visiting.

86. Sorry, theatre peeps, I’m hacking out some context here. I’ve been thinking about the theatre director Peter Brook. Someone quoted him at The Oliviers: “I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged.” His book “The Empty Space” is usually the first book someone reads about theatre. It was second I read after “theatre of cruelty”, back when i should’ve been doing my homework. It was and is an important book, of its time re gender pronouns etc, but with a lot that was new and pioneering. It introduced terms to the mainstream of theatre practice – most noticably the word “Space”. You hear that word all the time. The man himself is still going, in Paris, at 92. He survived 2016.

While my brother was being given Attenborough’s Life on Earth six times every Christmas, I was being given “The Empty Space.” It’s a hugely influential expression of the way in which theatre practice has been moving for some years, since before I was born. After the Restoration, Charles II imported the theatre he was used to from France. The puritans had torn down the old playhouses, where the actors and audience shared an intimacy borne from hundreds of years of travelling carts and mysteries. They were all gone. In their stead he erected huge houses of trickery and stagecraft, frames for the genius of the stage engineer Inigo Jones. These imposing proscenium arches pepper The West End with their balconies and vaulted ceilings. His framed theatre allowed women to be actors. Arguably Charles’ predilection for actresses is part of why he went to such lengths to restore the theatre in the first place. He liked actresses very much, most famously Nell Gwynn – his last words were “Let not poor Nellie starve.” That shows that despite being in charge he understood that artists need food. Unlike the fuckers we’ve got now. Nellie didn’t starve. Syphilis got her first..

The theatre of Charles and Inigo instigated such familiar concepts as the fourth wall. I suspect that by modern standards the acting would feel very mannered – there was a language of gesture, posture and tone that was consciously put into play over time by the casts. With so much naturalism across all disciplines now, it would be unfamiliar and likely jarring to see such practice. It stayed much the same though for a few hundred years.

Brook’s book came once television and film had taken root as the providers of the framed fourth wall. Since they took over as the primary visual storytellers, theatre has been reconnecting with its audience. There’s still a lot to be taken from being a fly on the wall in a room with breathing actors. Ballet is an example of why that will never stop being beautiful and moving. Harry Potter another – stagecraft and stage trickery is wonderful to witness and we can do so much with the technology we have. But there are many ways to tell a story, and deeper exploration of the nature of live experience is one of many ways to keep theatre breathing. In London, where space is at a premium, anywhere can be a stage as long as there’s room for Brook’s “someone” to watch that space.

This morning we were in a Christopher Wren crypt in central London talking about money and rules with a woman called Caroline. The crypt is over 400 years old but it doesn’t feel like it’s going to collapse. It’s expensive but it’s dry. Most underground spaces I’ve worked in have been damp enough to make you think you’ve got tuberculosis after a week. This place is so dry you have to drink plenty of water or ravage your voice. I’d prefer carrying around a bottle of water all day to spending every night coughing my lungs out. And it looks great, and works well. I was there once before some years ago for a week of R&D with Baz Productions that led to their inaugural showing of Macbeth. They are a brilliant motivated bunch of friends and collaborators, and our paths frequently cross. From my experience of watching their finished Macbeth, I know that with a load of candles and whatever else we can afford we can turn this spooky crypt into a Viking Mead Hall.

One of the things I love to make is theatre that’s about community and bringing people together. In Christmas Carol it was always my chief joy to see strangers swapping numbers after the show. If we make this right, we can have a Viking show where the audience leaves entertained, replete with mead and meat, and comfortably holding hands with someone they’ve only just met.

Ken Branagh stood up and capped tonight with a beautifully judged speech. “Fear and Dreams cannot coexist” – “Kindness is King” – “It’s about your team.” I’m so proud to have been at The Olivier Awards tonight and to have sat there and jumped out of my skin for joy when the home team won for Rotterdam.

I love working in theatre. There’s not much money so most people that stay in the sector are in it for the art and for the love. The ceremony tonight was a celebration of that geeky togetherness which has kept me with my nose to the grindstone for years wondering when I am going to get an audition for a theatre that you’ve heard of. I’ve been working with a huge variety of great hearted and skillful people making glorious strange human things that are written on the wind. I’ve picked up some wonderful friends along the way.

Reading between the lines, dear regular reader, you might have noticed I’ve not had the easiest week. It’s been a rollercoaster with beautiful highs and crashing lows. For a moment I thought I might have found a rope ladder that I could use to climb out of the hole I’m in. But the top wasn’t tied to anything. It’s worse when you’ve hoped. I had a couple of instances where I felt like all the ephemeral work I’ve been doing over so many years, because it hasn’t been stamped with big shiny names, and because I’ve always done it for the joy of the work and never shouted it to the rooftops – somehow it felt like I’m still at square one. Like I have to struggle to persuade people who sit in offices and write emails to write some about me. But despite these concerns, I’m winning because my team is winning all around me. I saw a close friend in a feature film screening this morning at The Curzon Soho and he smashed it. Then I sat in The Albert Hall and watched a bunch of close mates, including one of my best friends, as they won a fucking Olivier award. Plus I have met a new person who has been making my life better this week just by existing. Plus I’m making a beautiful play, writing a screenplay, doing a reading on Tuesday, keeping really occupied. I even got sent a long wonderful script just a few days ago with a part that was both written for and based on me, where I was essentially characterised as the Batman of Theatre. As Tim Minchin said tonight – and Patsy Rodenberg throughout Guildhall – “It’s about the work.” I’ve been working on my craft diligently for years. If you build it, they will come. Proof positive, right there in the results of that prize ceremony. Those boys work hard and that award is a huge validation of that work. I’ve been beaming all the way home. The perfect high point end to a weird sad week. A reminder that each day is different – each moment in each day is different. We have to turn up, constantly turn up, and shrug off the bad in search of the good.

Well done to Brian and Louis for bringing Rotterdam from the 503 to the Trafalgar and now to New York. Anyone in New York, book it here – and it WILL sell out. It’s beautiful and timely. I have no stake in it beyond loving the people that produced it. But I’m so stoked. Also well done to Harry Potter, winning all but one of their 10 nominations. I love what that play has done for theatre. By all accounts it’s magical, and since it’s likely to be many people’s first experience of theatre, it might drive audiences for a generation to come.

My first theatre experience as a kid was filled with wonder. I expect I wouldn’t still be chasing this pipe dream if I hadn’t seen the actors packing up the van in a pool of light. I found it both beautiful and compelling to see their fellowship – these people who were no longer characters on stage, banging bits of truss with hammers and humping around flats. Now I know the reality of it I cling to that child’s romance. Perhaps I’ve met some of those guys since then. Perhaps I’ve even been in a pub with one of them. It’s a small world. I’ll keep on trying to stand in the right bit of it until I either find my light or the play ends I can go to the pub.

In the evening I went to find my best friend in a park. The city has started to explode with the coming of the summer. Daffodils are shooting up everywhere like crack addicts. The people are swarming. You forget how many people there are in this town. Then the sun comes out and everyone simultaneously says “Let’s go to the park.” Thank God for the plague. There’s an example of something really shit ending up as something positive. Hundreds of thousands of gangrenous people coughing up blood and shivering to death. They had to be buried somewhere. They fertilised some great comfortable green spaces that can’t be safely built on. 350 years after the plague we have lots of lovely parks.

We sat in one and listened to a young guy in camouflage murdering The Eagles. Hotel California is one of the best known tunes that can be played on guitar before you’ve got the finger strength to bar properly. I wonder if The Eagles did that on purpose. I wonder how many places in the world that song was being played simultaneously at that moment. I wish you could get statistics on stuff like that. Also what is it with camouflage again? It’s like the nineties. Maybe it’s because we’re all so broke with this atrocious economic mess and all the cool kids are buying from Army Surplus. At least they’ll have fatigues when Trump triggers WWIII – What’s that? He already has? Ahh. Ok. Well maybe in 350 years something lovely will come about as the result of all this shit.

Walking to the South Bank was an obstacle course. Everyone was posing for photographs, skyping their spouse, skateboarding, parading, drunk stumbling, sharpening elbows. This city really is a melting pot of humanity. You see so many people, hear so many flashes of story. Sometimes it’s hard to take it all in – wildly contradicting states of being all crammed right next to each other. When I’ve been away a while it all feels like white noise. Looking around though you can see why they’re all here. It’s gorgeous and it’s ancient.

Minnie and I associate each other with the sunshine now. I am affected by the seasons. In the winter I am thoughtful and introverted and in the summer I am playful and extroverted. For a long time, one of the first things I’d do on a sunny day was phone her and leave one of my trademark endless directionless rambling answerphone messages. Now we almost automatically think of going for walks in parks when the weather turns to good. I often think I’d be totally screwed without my friends. They tell me when I’m being a dick, and help me unravel all the knots that I am capable of tying myself in with my overactive imagination. I’m getting an early night tonight as tomorrow I’ll be dressing up smartly to support one of them at The Olivier Awards. He’s produced a beautiful and timely play – Rotterdam – which started in Theatre 503, transferred to The West End and is now about to go to New York. It’s a gem of a play. I’m excited to see how the whole thing plays out on the night.

You have to be careful when you set your heart on something. But that’s no reason not to aim for it. I had my heart set on a professional situation. I had allowed myself to think into a positive outcome. I even shaved my lovely beard. Turns out it was faerie gold, and vanished with the dawning. Through that setback, I got concrete proof that this year has changed me. Because instead of running patterns of despair, I just got really really fucking angry. I wouldn’t have felt like that if I was still failing to attach value to myself. I was angry that someone else didn’t see value in me. And it made me want to do something about it.

Anger is close to passion. I’m angry because I’m passionate. I’ve been practicing my craft for years and working hard to garner opportunities to learn on the job. I’m opening every door I can, but I’m looking for someone who knows the bouncers so I can finally get through without being jumped on. It didn’t work this time. So be it. Back to bang bang bang on the door. I think it might be cracked. It’s hard to tell through all the blood. But wait – where does this door lead to? Another door. And there’s a line of people trying to bang their own hole. We should team up!

It’s so important to remember to be thankful for where you are. Sometimes I forget. A minor setback is nothing more, even if it feels that way when all you want to do is work. I went to see a friend today in an understudy run. He was playing what must be the hardest part to learn in Stoppard – Carr in Travesties.

The play is excellent. It’s a strange verbose piece, as you might expect from Stoppard, full of long diatribes on politics and art and war. It’s about memory and about comparative art and about conflict. It’s dense, but there are random songs breaking it up and plenty of humour. Carr is a huge learn – doubling back on himself in slightly different ways, rehashing scenes with variations, stumbling and fussing constantly. I found the play in the school library as a boy and instantly longed to see how it would work on stage. On the page it’s just word words words. Given life it’s great and much funnier than I expected. The understudies did it with virtually no rehearsal, as understudies have to, and they smashed it. They were on stage with some of the full cast, which shows a great kindness and willingness on their part, and on the part of the theatre staff, who aren’t being paid for it. It was wonderful to be there. Everyone was standing in the stalls at the end, helping make the event memorable for the actors who may only get that one chance to go on. An understudy run is a celebration of all the work that goes unseen. It’s usually a theatre full of friends and family and a few industry, getting a free showing of the play, watching the people who are usually just sitting in the dressing room with their hair done ready in case a light falls on someone.

Afterwards it was a chance to chat to the other people that were there – a bunch of creative geeks just like myself. I managed to stay for more than one soda, which is a development. One old friend was talking of how they’d downsized their house. Another was putting a brave face on having had so few meetings. We’re all in this together. So many actors looking to their next job, and forgetting to notice that the sun is shining and it’s fucking springtime yayyy!

So that’s enough stomping around just because I couldn’t have exactly what I wanted like a spoilt child. I’m still able to be an actor. That’s fucking lucky. I’ve had some great things happen this year and will continue to make luck for myself in the year to come. And if someone asked me to shave my beard and then didn’t follow through in the way I expected, it’s enough that I’m clean shaven now. That’s clearly what the universe wanted. Let’s see what luck clean shaven Al can make.

Right now he’s going to have a bath and a cuddle. Maybe that’s enough for now.