Filling The Time

There’s nothing worse than when you can boot up the computer on a Monday morning, open the calendar and see five empty days stretching ahead of you. That’s what it’s been like this week. Not too many little pink shaded bits associated with work to worry about.

So the task becomes finding things that hopefully will be fulfilling, fun, and just plain time filling. You can get into the habit of taking a bath in the morning, or in a less environmentally friendly sort of way but much more fun, take a shower in the morning and have a soak in the bath in the early evening. 90 minutes gone

As the week  progressed I become very familiar with “Heir hunters” on BBC1. This is a fascinating early-morning daytime television programme where teams of bald men in Ford Montego’s try to chase estates that have been left without a will. I do have an addictive personality,  and basically two viewings of this early in the week and it’s become unmissable.

Wednesday saw lunch with my lovely friend Fran Ryan in the auspicious surroundings of Clapham Junction. A quick root through the shelves of TK Maxx produced a pan for Fran and the less well rhymed purchase of a scented candle for myself before taking lunch in one of Clapham Junction’s  finer naff caffs.

  It will be my last sight of Fran  for quite awhile  as she is off  up North to do  some theatre in Keswick. I’m jealous. I’m very jealous. Not of the Arthur Miller play that she is doing. Quite frankly wild horses can barely get me into a theatre where an Arthur Miller play is on. Something to do I think that having to study the  pre- pubescent  screaming of all those girls in “The Crucible”  at  `o level.  The very mention of the words “Tituba” and rev Paris can bring me out in a cold sweat. My hatred of Miller might also be tied up with the fact that I have probably one of the worst American  accents in British equity.

What I am very jealous of  is the fact that  she will be in rehearsal for three weeks and then playing for three weeks. It’s the ritual that I was brought up on, and although my tolerance level of any job these days is considerably lower than it used to be, going back to the old habits of theatre always brightens my soul.   The camaraderie that one finds among actors is always at its strongest in the theatre. Being together with a group of people who like you are putting themselves on the line in front of a live audience, and you’re doing this together.  This is acting at its best.

So in order to get a little bit of soul food myself  I am currently searching for some theatre to do, either as a director, or as an actor. It’s no financial investment to do theatre and wherever and whatever I do I know I won’t earn enough money to cover the essential living costs incurred during that time, but in times of recession one should invest. Isn’t that what we keep hearing? So that’s what I  want to do, invest in myself. Something I probably need to do for my own good.

And as a final thought, if I can’t find any brilliant new material, or classic play awaiting a finely timed revival- if there is no new Alan Bennett coming to us off the page, I could always rely on the wit and dialogue of my mother!

This week’s example.

(Mother and Son are on the phone)

 Son.                        We’re going away for our birthdays.

Mother.            Oh that’s nice. Where you off to?

Son.                        Iceland!

Mother.            Oh Iceland. That’s nice. (PAUSE) You’ll be able to visit the fairy grotto.

Son.            The what

Mother.            The Fairy Grotto.

Son.            What fairy grotto?

Mother.            Well where did Pat take the kids to?

Son.            Lapland!

Mother.            Oh yes. Lapland. That was nice

                        PAUSE

                        What do you want to go to Iceland for?

So long live the theatre. Long live doing things for the good of them …and long live my mother.