This Acting Lark

Much-Larking-In-The-Dark-Woods

2006-10-28T19:34:00.000+01:00

So we're having a ball. Much ice has been broken. Lines are pretty much learnt and the actors are larking about making each other laugh. We are in a special piece of work and we are sooo lucky to be in this trade where coming to work is coming to play. We have the luxury (these days) of a four week rehearsal period so last Wednesday having played with all the bits of it we still had a week and a half to glue it back together and familiarise ourselves with the play as a whole. Of course to do that one has to actually run the thing. We come to:

THE FIRST STAGGER THROUGH!!!

No pressure. No acting required. If you want to go back over something or you forget your lines that's fine this is just to see what needs to be done over the next period. Oh, what a difference a day makes. What is this thing we're doing? I can't act! What was I thinking? Suddenly there is no such thing as magic. (Very relevant as The Indian Boy is inspired by A Midsummer Night's Dream) I want to change my ticket from a voyage of dicovery to a day trip to Bognor. "Make it safe!" I scream but no-one listens. I wake in a cold sweat and wish for a Winnebago.

Of course I exaggerate. It will be fine. It's always like this. Keep the faith. Steer between Scylla and Charybdis and a bright new day will dawn and all manner of things will be well. You can nail jelly to the wall and make it look attractive. Can't wait for next week. Ulp!

The secret revealed

2006-10-17T19:25:00.000+01:00

How do you learn your lines? Just graft alright? No tips and tricks. Just go over and over them saying them to yourself or anyone else who is kind enough to indulge you until they stick. Terribly valuable period of rehearsal as you are getting intimate with the writer properly for the first time. Feel them in your mouth. Taste the surprises. Ask questions. Meditate.

One of our cast uses a well worn postcard of a young Marlon Brando (his benchmark) to cover his lines as he works down the page.

I am actually going on my bike. And taking sandwiches.

I am the old man of the cast. Aaagh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But there is a lot of love in the room.

What is actually happening?

2006-10-09T19:28:00.000+01:00

Read-throughs are one of those strange artistically value-free events which one has to go through because what the heck else are you going to do on the first day of rehearsal which would be less painful? There are always some words about hearing the arc of the play now it's been re-written etc. and perfectly valid words they are, along with a lot of other valid words and a valid look at the set and other quaint validities. What is actually happening though is we are all sussing each other out. Some we know, some we have worked with, some are brand new, how is it going to shake-down? Are we going to have a good/easy/terrible/interesting/fulfilling/maddening time for the next few weeks? Are we going to learn something new or have that final breakdown which tips us over the edge into the black soup? The air hums with potential. Glances are sneaked. Little flags are raised. It's sweet and fearful. Full of hope and trepidation and I think I've made my point so I will shut up.

It all went off ok anyway and the play has an arc and the set is exciting. The Cube itself is a 100 seat temporary auditorium built inside the RST and suspended there at a slight angle to and ending at the proscenium arch and it will exist for only a month I think. Tibetan butter-sculpture springs to mind.

I might go on my bike tomorrow.

Stream of consciousness

2006-10-08T18:17:00.000+01:00

Yes ok it's been a while but J and I have moved and this takes up piles of energy, physical and emotional and anyway I have hardly worked to speak of so This Acting Lark would have been a misnomer if in fact I had posted anything during this period of transition but some people would say "whaddya mean, isn't this normal for an actor?" (trying to be comforting and humorous) and I have to allow this mean tributary of statistical observation to swell the river of perception up which I and fellow Larklanders have to paddle.

however

a) We live somewhere lovely

b) I start work tomorrow on a new Rona Munro play 'The Indian Boy' for the RSC. 4 Weeks rehearsal and six performances only in The Cube at Stratford. It looks exciting. I'll let you know. A bit.

c) Well I've started posting again isn't it?

Enough Larking?

2006-04-01T14:52:00.000+01:00

This Acting Lark can sometimes bring sudden moments of decision. Quite serious decisions really. Even more serious than what to wear for an interview. Incidentally, readers of the previous post may be forgiven for thinking that I had left all this behind and was having the crazy time with the money and the sun and the girls in S.Africa. Thank God I didn't get that job! No moral dilemmas about advertising a gas-guzzling, urban tank and they were only paying a rubbish £30,000.00 buy-out. I am assured this is chicken-poo by those who know.

The thing is, I was offered a job on Thursday night out of the blue. A good part in a nice regional theatre run by a Very Nice Man whom I had worked with nearly twenty years ago. I turned it down! Well, Larkland Pipeline, as far as one can tell is oozing a bit and while a bird in the hand is etc. I can't afford to be tied up at this point because of possibilities pending. The decision had to be made immediately as the job starts on Monday.

It didn't matter what I wore to the rather exciting interview I had on Friday as it was to voice a character in a feature length animation. A mad American military type. I borrowed a bit of the Colonel in Sgt. Bilko - what was his name? - and mixed in a bit of Yogi Bear and gave it some muscle. It made me laugh but I have no idea how it was received. You have to go in with something that you feel good about and have practiced well, otherwise you're just not in it in the first place. If you're not in - you can't win. I did actually give some thought to clothes. Of course I did. If you don't feel good about yourself why should anyone else feel good about you?

Looking forward to an interview at the Soho Theatre on Tuesday and working with some old colleagues in a TV-writing workshop on Wednesday, a repeat of last year (see The Duck Is Broken on this page) and I'm also helping to devise and deliver an acting workshop for young people the following week apart from making a short DV film with J. Enough Larking to be going on with I feel.

Shameless

2006-03-15T10:22:00.000Z

Would you give this man a job?

Thrift and style

2006-03-13T19:32:00.000Z

So I've gone for the brown Hugo Boss modish suit (half-price Moss Bros 2002) which was purchased for the first night of The Glee Club at the Duchess. A memorable night for some. I was wearing a Glee Club baseball cap in the Two Bridges a few months ago and Simon Stokes and Doug Lucie were at the next table, we exchanged greetings as you do and Doug Lucie who I don't know personally said to me "Is that an 'I survived the Glee Club first night party' hat?"! Word gets round.......... I do remember vitally neglecting to open a plate glass door from The Crypt before trying to exit. J had sensibly left a good bit earlier not wanting to witness the full horror. I have to keep to myself the doings of others for fear of backlash but they know who they are if not where they were.

The brown Bally shoes (half-price Heathrow Airport 2000) and the white shirt with the button down collar (which I know some people regard as an abomination but they rather suit me). Luckily I have just had my hair cut (free for subscribers to Time Out at the new Japanese-style place at platform one Euston Station - not bad actually).

All this for a commercial casting tomorrow at 12.40pm. A successful outcome would involve plenty dosh and a trip to S.Africa.

Vain tart?.....Moi?.....That's cruel.

I think I'm trying to highlight the idea that thrift and style need not neccessarily be strange bedfellows. If you see something that's quality, it suits you and it's a bargain, grab it. You never know when you may need it and it's tax deductable.

A Toast To Actors!

2006-03-05T16:25:00.000Z

For all you birders out there, yes of course what I'm seeing in my garden is a pair of Long Tailed Tits. Juveniles actually so without the pink blush. They are tiny packets of life and noise and they just make you feel good.

Something long overdue in This Acting Lark is a paean of praise to the actor:

What a piece of work is he or she. What a co-operator, what a masterer of skills, what a suspicious, two-faced love-junkie. A mis-fit, a fitter-in, an inside outsider. A burning passion within to interpret and represent the work of great writers, have sex and drink too much.

Accused of being a mercenary tart
(it takes one to know one)
Accused of being thick
(by those with gormless bodies)
Watch out! They can read your mind
(they can also clean your windows, fix your car, educate your children and ruin your marriage)

They are united by triumph and disappointment, by their vanity and generosity, their rage and laughter. They have chosen a bigger life and paid the price. Thank you, just a drop of the Barolo please. Brindisi!

Saw Capote on Friday and it truly is an impressive performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener as Harper Lee is stunning. I have to say that Bob Balaban is great as Capote's agent after having slagged off his direction of The Exonerated in a previous post.

Misc.

2006-03-01T17:52:00.000Z

The Miniaturists night went very well I think. I was happy with my Carl the ageing, gay, hippy Cambridge graduate in 'The Troubador'. We got to do it twice which was a relief because the first time in public my heart was doing about 180 bpm and I was having to make a big effort to keep my body under control and look relaxed. I had to dance in a - shall we say - free way to 'See Emily Play' by Pink Floyd which was a real mixture of pleasure tempered by embarrasment as it flew me straight back to my teenage years.

The whole evening of five plays twice was extremely well organised by Stephen Sharkey. Ellen Hughes did a great job of directing our piece and made some quite excellent soup. Couldn't have had better actors than Tim Morand and Dominic Colenso to do it with. Trouble is it all happened so quickly, a bit like an accident - one wonders whether it really happened at all.

I discover that my cousin Andrew in Australia has started a blog called Lying On The Couch which may give you a clue to his profession.

In response to lack of pipeline action in my professional life I have put up a bird feeder in the garden. We have a pair of tit-like cuties in our ceonothus. Can't figure out what they are from the books. I'll try and get a picture and post it. Also I have been sitting at the keyboard and very laboriously trying to pick my way through a grade 1 Mozart minuet. I am determined to nail it.

Lurking, Larking and a spot of w**king

2006-02-25T19:45:00.000Z

If you want to get an interview grow some inappropriate facial hair (see inset). Quite suitable for an Icelandic trawlerman for the reading at The Bush and I thought also not bad for the ageing hippy in the Miniaturists evening (see previous post). Lurking (not Larking) though, at the back of my mind was the notion that something would come along to force me to shave it off. Sure enough I conjured an interview by this occult method. A nice part in three episodes of Murphy's Law. An important copper from Nottingham. I worked hard on the script, got the accent down and shaved myself so smooth you could have curled a long stone down my cheek. They couldn't have been less interested, I was in and out of there before you could say "You're bang to rights sonny!"

Never mind though, never mind, the very following day I was at The Globe strutting my Tribune (in Coriolanus) before the previously unmet Dominic Dromgoole, and Roxanna Silbert auditioned my Ben Gunn from Simon Bent's wonderful piratical romp 'Under The Black Flag' which will make him the envy of many a monsterist. Big plaudits I feel should go to them for having the vision to put it on. I worked on the final stages of the development of it with Simon and Paul Miller at the NT Studio a couple of years ago and have rarely laughed as much ever. I also learned a lot of remarkable and extremely salient (and saline) historical stuff.

Last night I was taken by a friend to see Exonerated at Riverside Studios. Overrated I call it. Yes I know it is in a very good cause and Stockard Channing was marvellous as are all the other actors but I dislike intensely having my emotional buttons fumbled with in such a clumsy and to be perfectly frank bloody lazy way. They were lined up with scripts in front of them and each actor was miked up so their voices came out of the speakers like a voice-over and every time one of them spoke their overhead light came on. This is Studio Two at Riverside, what, 400 people in a room - are we deaf and blind? It was like watching a dozen audition speeches and they went on and on long after any serious point was made. And it was all about these sweet innocent people who had had their lives wasted or had been murdered by the state. What about the guilty who were murderd by the state? Is that any less reprehensible? Now that might have been a debate but this event (it certainly wasn't theatre) completely sidestepped it. I do not want to belittle the suffering of Sunny Jacobs and the others but this production was anti-theatre and the director should not be proud of drowning Stockard Channing's delivery of the author's words in stupid sound effects of police sirens and bullets. WE KNOW WHAT THEY SOUND LIKE BOB!

I may sound like I am over-reacting but I am not. This was a dead experience and not fit to lick the boots of the Tricycle's 'Guantanamo', 'Stephen Lawrence Enquiry' et al. Needless to say anybody who was anybody was there and a lot of them felt they had to stand at the end regardless of what they had seen. Muppets.

Busy But Not Earning: A well known story

2006-02-20T17:51:00.000Z

Saw The Anderson Project last Friday and was blown away. Mainly by the feeling of relaxed good humour with which Robert LePage delivered his two hour tour de force which is not exactly a cheery story while keeping one riveted by the narrative and amazed by the theatrical wizardry. I wasn't expecting much as I had only seen his Midsummer Night's Dream before and wasn't impressed (except by Tim Spall's Bottom) so J and I went out into the night cheered enough to purchase a celebratory Chinese takeaway. I suspect I enjoyed the experience partly because it is not really what I do or aspire to do. Although I really admired his easy adoption of character and smooth control and precision in delivery.

By the way, the Barbican is a fantastic spot for people watching and obviously a nexus point on some ley line for the sartorially challenged and those who are interested in silly walks, strange headgear and creative hair arranging!

The play-reading at The Bush went very well. Set on a trawler at sea somewhere 'Surf' by Jón Atli Jónasson fished in the depths of the Icelandic psyche (perhaps). I spent half the play dead but still talking! The audience found the play very funny and I do not attribute this to the fact that all were given free vodka before, at the interval and after the play.

The play I have been working on for the Miniaturists evening at Southwark Playhouse next Sunday 'The Troubador' by Sebastian Baczkiewicz turns out to be a real gem. It's a fantastic discipline to try and get this right. With a longer piece you get a chance to bring a performance back on track if you feel it is veering onto the hard shoulder or indeed the soft verges but with a ten minute play you pretty much have to drive a straight and true line while at the same time feeling free enough to deliver it with relaxation and flair. Now having expressed the challenge I rather wish I hadn't!

A Walk On Hampstead Heath

2006-02-18T17:03:00.000Z

I would like to share a companionable walk on Hampstead Heath I had with my wife J. We are very lucky to have this resource within striking distance.

Africa or North London?

Definitely North London

Wintracious Shadows

J and I

One of the great boons of this acting lark is being able to say what a lovely day let's go for a walk. We'll put the busy, busy world to one side. Much as it has done to us.

Of Monsters and Minis

2006-01-31T18:21:00.000Z

As an interpretive artist, and certainly not the LEAD artist on any given project - some will get this reference and understand that my tongue is somewhere - can I afford to have opinions about form? I find myself increasingly interested in absolutely anything and more and more uninterested in following some true path. Artistic rigor is all really and I definitely do have opinions about that. This obviously makes me perfectly employable or possibly the complete opposite. Anyway I love working with directors - and now my tongue is somewhere else.

Mike Bradwell - the Li-Po of West London dramaturgy - called on Monday about a playreading of an Icelandic play 'Surf' at The Bush on 15th which Will Kerley is directing. Will directed me in 'The Godbotherers' also at The Bush - a play by well known Monsterist Richard Bean. Imagine my surprise when I was asked today if I would be interested in taking part in an evening of Miniaturist plays at Southwark Playhouse on Sunday 26th. Look here . I feel like Gulliver.

Journey's End - End in sight

2006-01-25T14:05:00.000Z

I can't grumble can I, having been employed in London's glittering West End in a popular production and playing a part that I enjoy? Well do you know what? I'm an actor so I can. The dressing rooms are horrid, squalid, tiny affairs built for Victorian midgets and their rodent companions. It is a relief to get onto the set which is a brilliantly realised replica of a WW1 trench, dirt and all. The money (when it arrives on time) is so rubbish that I have been forced to travel by bicycle and bring sandwiches to stave off the bailiffs.

There have been plenty of up-sides of course. I have hugely enjoyed watching young actors perform and develop and being in their company. I have also relished being one of the grumbly old gits on the bottom corridoor. I have loved playing Mason the droll, ubiquitous cook. The play itself is a very fine piece of work structurally and just works. It has been enjoyed by young and old for different reasons but has never failed to press home its message of the senselessness of the catastrophic waste of young mens' lives in that conflict by providing a rich emotional context.

I realise I have written as though it is already ended, in fact it finishes this coming Saturday 28th but one has begun to disengage and look forward to making new scratches on the tabula rasa of 2006. Nothing happening so far but I am cautiously pessimistic.

Journey's End?

2005-08-22T22:00:00.000+01:00

Started rehearsals today for a revived production of Journey's End by R.C.Sheriff. I am playing Mason the cook and it will run at the New Ambassadors from 15th Sept I think until Jan 2006. The money is crap but the play is great and as far as I can tell, the team very good. This is the same production that David Grindlay directed 2 years ago and has had four casts since. This is an entirely new cast and new director, Tim Roseman.

I have not blogged for a while because in purdah. Not too sure about it all and whether it's fun for me still. My comments box is full of badness. Anyway we'll see how we go.

Oh, the glamour

2005-07-27T14:04:00.000+01:00

Yes, a long silence but a thick one. The readings in Reading went well. I remembered how to do acting. It's like falling off a bike or getting on a horse or something. I worked with really talented people and the writer Dawn Garrigan was only too willing to revise and re-write on the job and had a huge learning experience.

As is the way of these things the director of the reading Debbie Seymour got me in for half a days work as a guinea-pig for a directors course that she runs. This was fascinating as the brief was to be directed by applicants for this course and give some feedback to go towards their appraisal. There may be more of this work and it keeps me off the streets with a jangle of change in the purse.

The glamour of all this is obviously dulled by London's recent experiences and the reaction. Are we seeing the first signs of a nation's insanity when under deliberate attack. We look for hairs on the palms of our collective hands and sure enough....! Are we not right to worry and debate about the erosion of liberties without being called The Human Rights Brigade as a term of abuse?
Stiffness of any sort is not going to help, in the upper lip or elsewhere. Flexibility and argument and examination of every action is called for. I remember in the aftermath of the Birmingham IRA bombings the thoughtless backlash against the Irish.

Londoners are wary, there is a watchfulness and even a courtesy which is different from before. There is good to come from this if we keep engaged with reality and don't barricade our minds.

Meanwhile back in the Larkland pipeline Dynorod are working - of which, more later.

With one bound...

2005-07-06T19:56:00.000+01:00

If I had known that starting this blog would coincide with the worst period of my so-called career in ten years then I would probably have called it something else like "How To Make A Cordon-Bleu Style Meal From A Piece Of Scrag-End And An Old Tea-Bag" or "The Up-side Of Divorce" or "The Joy Of Meths" or "Acting For One" the end is listless!

Ah-ha, you may think. This must mean that things have changed. Well I will admit to a slight shift, not wanting to overstate the situation. I was on my way to meet a talented writer friend of mine, Simon Bent, in order to discuss with him the making of an ultra-low budget DV movie of a script of his and my phone rang. It was my agent with "D'y wanna week's work?" Well I thought, I know beggars can't be choosers but a little more info wouldn't be spurned.

As it turns out it's a very interesting project developing scripts with new playwrights for an organisation called writernet. Readings of these scripts will take place in Reading at a week long event called Hydroponic. I am being payed proper money for this, it's not a love thing or a punt at the future. The funding comes from Reading council, the Arts Council, the European Social Fund and others. I get to play a funeral director called Vince who is dying from cirrhosis caused by the drink in a play called 'Thirteen Months' by Dawn Garrigan.

I have my meeting with Simon who presents me with a script which he has put together since the night before when I mooted the idea of a short film project. I gets home and there is a repeat fee cheque waiting for me from 'The Rotters' Club' which I was not expecting, not huge but not derisory either. So with one bound he was free for another month from complete penury and able to fight another day. What a lark.

As far as the Casualty interview went - see last post - I did not hear a dicky bird. Complete silence. Apart from being frustrating because one can't get on with one's life until one is completely sure about stuff it is just bloody rude. How hard is it to say thank you for coming in I'm afraid it didn't work out this time? People who work in casting really should know better.

I started this post before last week's events and I will come back to them in a subsequent post.

No-one would ever say that

2005-06-19T15:57:00.000+01:00

Brains gently boiling in the sun as I listen to the Aussies being seriously challenged by England in the one day series after their humiliation at the hands of Bangladesh. The game is cricket, for those who may be at sea.

There is to be an organ donor special episode of 'Casualty' for organ donor week - don't ask me when that is. I was interviewed on Friday for the part of the father of a cystic fibrosis victim waiting for a heart and lung transplant.

Following on from the rage of the last post I find myself - after fifteen minutes studying some scenes - blubbing in front of a camera and two people I have never met before. This is in no small measure due to an exceedingly WELL WRITTEN SCRIPT. Actors are always moaning about TV scripts and often feel - true or not - that they are having to make a script work rather than being supported by it. TV drama is not real life and sometimes one finds oneself speaking either subtext or exposition in order to make the drama move forward. This is sometimes a bad thing and sometimes it isn't. It seems to me that if you make too many rules then you're bound to be wrong sooner or later.

Quality of writing however, whether subtextual, obtuse or expositional has its effect on performance and it doesn't matter if "no-one would ever say that". Good writing has an indefinable feeling of truthfulness about it which puts one closely in touch with the ideas and feelings to be expressed.

I discovered during the miners' strike in '84 when I was doing some research for 'The Garden Of England' - a staged documentary directed by Peter Gill at the National, that when people were in a state of passion they became extremely eloquent and more and more sophisticated in their use of the language. Particularly, brilliant use of parentheses, juggling several parts of an idea and drawing them down when required to get the whole picture across - because it was important. I read swathes of transcribed, recorded interviews which never failed to touch the heart because the subject matter, the feeling and the intention all came together because of the need to express it all. I'm sure there was plenty of stuff in there that "no-one would ever say". If only one could bottle it.

Anyway I was sent on my way blinking into the White City sun feeling a little dishragged and a bit surprised but not unhappy with the interview. This acting lark can still sneak up and give you a poke when you're not expecting it.

The Thought Fox

2005-06-13T12:14:00.000+01:00

Boom, boom, Mr Ted!

Rage Against The Machine

2005-06-13T11:49:00.000+01:00

Auditions can be fun. "We want Rod to come in and improvise being very angry". Heck that's a stretch.

People pay good money to sit in another human presence and quiver with diluvian angst. I get to do it for free on camera and there might be a job at the other end, who knows?

So I saw Karen Lyndsey Stewart and Carolyn McCleod (a solid casting crew) for a v. small part in a new Basic Instinct movie. I had to be a regular patient in a top flight therapist's practice who was in a rage, so I had to come along with a character and a lot of stuff to be angry about.

I suppose I may have chosen a shade of myself; a wealthy partner in a firm of accountants furious at being taken for a ride financially and emasculated verbally by his estranged wife. Pretty much the opposite of my own situation. I seriously do not like this guy but find it very easy to get in touch with his sense of injury and impotent fury. His or mine?

I ranted my rant for the camera and finished in a trembling state of high and unrequited dudgeon. I think they may have been slightly taken aback. I emerged into a sunlit Wardour Street with a spring in my step and a whistle on my lips. I wondered momentarily who was carefree here? Me or Mr. Horrible? Don't look a gift horse in the mouth said Dr. Acting.

Karen Lyndsey Stewart once cast me in the film 'Sylvia' in which Gwyneth Paltrow played the eponymous Plath. I played the man who tried to sell Ted Hughes (Daniel Craig) a fox cub at night in a park, providing him with the inspiration for the poem 'The Thought Fox', a great piece about how the poetry arrives.

Unfortunately nobody had researched the life cycle of the fox and as we were filming in October and cubs are invariably born in the spring I was presented with a young but fully grown vixen to stuff into my jacket. It was actually quite a good natured beast but the tail wagging at my waist was a bit of a give-away. They tried a small dog which looked nothing like a fox but finally I ended up doing the scene with a fur stole in my coat and a growing conviction that this scene would prove to be inessential to the final product. I was right. Also superfluous to requirements was any poetry, so the reference would have been baffling anyway to those who were not familiar with the Hughes oeuvre.

It's all a bit of a mystery isn't it?

Mr and Mrs Smith

2005-06-05T17:24:00.000+01:00

I just want to let any interested parties know that I have not gone away but that I am in retreat mode in a Chinese sense. Re-grouping.

I have no acting larks to blog about, however while walking along the cliffs near Seaford the other day with J we saw and, more to the point, heard hundreds of the birdy types singing their little lungs out. Uplifting and kind of funny at the same time. "Me, look at me!" they shout "No, me, I'm the one that you want!". "Bet you can't sing this!"

J and I have decided to reclaim our name from Brad and Angelina so Mr and Mrs Smith may well become a byword for something or other. I'll let you know when forces have been marshalled.

Dead Flowers Live

2005-05-30T21:40:00.000+01:00

In the absence of the larking about professionally and despite dark thoughts of the destruction of the artistic soul of our nation and possibly the planet by the encroaching forces of greed and philistinism I will nevertheless try and set down one or two snippets for the blog nibblers out there to chew on.

I have not yet heard about the film I went up for, apparently the tapes went astray in the post but now have been recovered and the last I heard they were winging their way to somewhere over the rainbow from whence a reply will doubtless come soon or not at all. We are in the midst of that quaint institution a bank holiday where sport is played, tea is drunk and everyone does their banking on-line.

For my own part, I and the band which I front known as Dead Flowers played a gig yesterday at the Redbridge Green Fair, the sort of festival where one can purchase a gluten-free falafel wrap and get an Indian head massage if one is so minded. At 52 I am the junior member of the band and I jump around a bit and sing. I also play the electric fiddle and mandolin when the others let me. Our set list includes such classics as "There's a Riot Going On", "Sympathy for The Devil" and "Roll Over Beethoven" so pastoral it isn't! Well we had fun and so did the thirty or so people who hung around or wandered within earshot and the cute white dog with the curly tail seemed to be enjoying itself.

It was also the 50th birthday of my very good friend and indeed best man, Paul Bradley a fine actor and one of the funniest men alive. He had the most brilliant party in a boathouse by the Lee Navigation opposite Walthamstow Marshes - a venue of mystery and history and the largest group of sleeping swans I have ever seen. A few drinks were taken and old acquaintances renewed and ways to make a living dicussed ranging from being a tour guide to pest-control and whether there was an overlap. More of that later perhaps. The composer Stephen Warbeck and the central core of his band The hKippers (the h is silent) which PB fronts, played an unplugged session of his renowned sound Stupid World Music before which gremlins pale and depression flees.

Thank you and good-night.

Lark?

2005-05-23T12:28:00.000+01:00

I saw Kingfisher Blue at The Bush last week on the first preview and had a fine evening. Lin Coghlan the writer and Paul Miller the director together make a special kind of theatre which manages to be raw and lyrical at the same time and a good story is told to boot. Everyone should go and see some fab acting as well.
A vast silence reigns in career space, not a lark ascending.

Shut the door on your way out

2005-05-18T14:43:00.000+01:00

Yes I know it's been a while but I've been in Paris don't y'know. Flying (literally) in the face of fiscal prudence J and I felt we should take the advice of Jackie Wullschlager the art critic of the FT and see the Matisse exhibition "Une Seconde Vie" at the Musée du Luxembourg. It was very much to my taste, colourful, confident, life affirming and joyous. Matisse was extremely ill when he was 71 and not expected to recover, however he did and the world is a better place for that. His work for the next 14 years was largely made up of his famous shapes, coloured, cut out and stuck on. Blue Peter at genius level. All I can say is go if you can. There are deals to be got on expedia if you don't mind flying.
As far as the acting is concerned I had to pop in for another swift visit to the "Family Affairs" set to round off Glen the psychic, drained after his efforts and eager to leave. It was a different director for this last scene as it occurrs in the following episode which falls in a different block. Hardly had we introduced ourselves than I was finished shooting and on my way home. "Shut the door on your way out " - I thought I heard them call. Easily said but the exit area of the Thames shed was being used as a hospital set that day and I had to weave my way through a crowd of Supporting Artists - who were pretending various afflictions - and slope off, hoping not to be trapped and penned by the shepherd-like 3rd Assistant Director - Come by! Come by! Then I'm out. Back on the street and unemployed, the very low fee pre-spent long ago.
Pipeline-wise I was interviewed yesterday for a small part in a movie "Razors Edge" playing Wesley Snipes' boss. I met Po Chih Leong the director and I had to pretend to shout at WS down the phone. I wore a blue shirt, red tie, smart grey trousers and brown wool jacket and had a neat, short haircut the day before. There was very little character description but I felt I had made the right sort of choices. We'll see.
I went to the Royal Court last night to see "The Woman Before". I'm afraid I just didn't get it. It referred to Greek tragedy. Medea possibly. Oh well.

Goon Strip Actor!

2005-05-10T12:24:00.000+01:00

Now I didn't think I was actually going to feel a bit guilty about not posting but here I am ready with a few excuses. Been driving back and forth to Wales as my wife J and I pledged help to some parent friends who rarely get to go on holiday by looking after their house, dogs and thoroughly delightful young teen boy and girl while at the same time I have been playing Glen Ashstone the reluctant psychic in "Family Affairs".

Going into soap world as a guest is an odd experience. It's not exactly like going into a country pub full of locals but there are similarities. Of course it is a very nice neighbourhood and once one has been there for one day people at least recognise you as a part of the machine.

The pace of shooting is wild - on my first day I arrived at 8.15am and was out of the building by 10am having shot two scenes. The discipline and concentration required to produce some truthful work is huge. The regulars know exactly who they are and what their history gives them, as a guest one needs to have made a lot of decisions before turning up so as to have an inner life which can convince. Luckily the wardrobe people and I were on the same wavelength and after one telephone conversation they had provided a good selection of stuff for me to wear as there were no costume fittings in advance - Glen Ashstone came together quickly and finally in the dressing room.

One or two line-runs on camera and then one or two takes and it's done, as they shoot with three cameras simultaneously. The director is only going to intervene if there is a technical problem or if it is truly awful. The trick is to have imagined well what one looks like and who one is so that you can walk in to any situation or location and react truthfully to whatever comes your way. This way you can relax in to it and not feel the need to act each line too hard - a big temptation when you are only going to get one or two goes at it. As an actor you can make this type of drama as good as it can be, to think you can make it better is arrogant and counter-productive. It was going on before you arrived and will continue after you have been forgotten.

This is also true of regulars. This is a current issue with "Family Affairs" as there is a new series producer and all producers like to make some changes. Some actors have found that their characters are going, some are relieved to be kept on. The rhyme or reason for these changes are not really relevant to the individuals involved, some go some stay, end of story. What may be life-changing for them is just another episode.

On Friday last I did some psychic scenes. I can't really reveal what goes on but it involved a cuddly toy and inventive camera work. I still have a bit more to do later this week which I'll post about later - obviously - as I'm not really a prognosticator - which I've just noticed is an anagram for Goon Strip Actor!