Cardigan Time

It's the time of year that I like; the cardigans are coming out.

Last weekend saw the arrival of two of my cardigans, Richard's parents, and a trip to an English vineyard for lunch with 30 people. When I met Mr Richard Howle nearly 17 years ago and our eyes locked across the Telegraph crossword in the green room of the Arts Theatre Cambridge, I didn't see the large, varied, and fertile family sitting right behind him. As an only child, adopted by my parents after two failed attempts at having their own child,  I have always associated family life with a remarkable degree of isolation. I'd like to think that the long hours I amused myself as a child are a part of the reason for my fertile imagination. Richard has always been part of a larger group. It's probably why he is so genuinely at ease with people, and yet also I know how he values our time alone.

This weekend we have managed to get two whole days together for the first time in ages. This evening, Saturday night, will be a curry and a chance to watch the film I made last year, now retitled "The Rise" which we downloaded from iTunes. Tomorrow will be a trip to the cinema in Greenwich to see the film about James Hunt  - "Rush" which fuels Richard's passion for motor racing, and which might go some way to making up  for the fact that while we are watching it the Singapore Grand Prix will be taking place which he should  have been  glued to on the television.

I've done a couple more days filming for Hollyoaks - still as chaotic, but the police uniform is giving me a strange thrill, and I have started to do some one-to-one speaker preparation sessions for the McDonald's conference I will be directing in Portugal at the beginning of next month and the one that I will be directing in London in November. Going to McDonald's HQ these days is like going to a place  where lots of old friends live, and certainly many of the speakers who I  have worked with for several years now have indeed become friends. This year there are also a refreshing number of new speakers for  whom standing on a stage in front of 600 people will be an entirely new experience, and I hope I'm doing my best to make sure that it will be a pleasant one for them.

 There's been some nice publicity out lately about my book, and I'm still dabbling away on the plotting of my whodunnit. Actually  I have written three paragraphs so technically I have started writing it, but I seem  strangely reluctant to commit to that fact and am hoping to get a couple of days away at some point where I can get at least 5000 words  down  and so know that I'm underway.

We have got a whole lot of ventures going on at The Actors Centre this autumn, one of which starting on Monday is called "Off The Record" and is a chance for me to chat to several prominent people within the theatre and television world for an audience of Actors Centre members. One of the great joys of working as an actor is that you learn a lot through anecdotal experience. People chatting in the green room. People exchanging stories, and sometimes a guiding hand from an older colleague on the rehearsal room floor. When you're not working you miss this, so I'm hoping that these once a month hourly sessions will aim to provide this was the people who are not in work at the moment, and missing the associated joys.

On Monday I shall have the joy of chatting with the delightful and immensely talented Juliet Stevenson. My main problem, of course, at the moment is deciding which cardigan to wear.