A Day Off.

A Day Off.

 Technically today is my first day of unemployment for quite a while.

I finished a seven-month run in a soap opera last Wednesday.  There was a certain amount of relief in doing so as it hasn't always been the easiest or the best of times. Thursday, Friday and even Saturday have managed to fill themselves up with freelance jobs, so today, sitting at my desk, I'm rather relishing the fact that I haven't had to get out of my pyjamas and I'm catching up on accounts, invoicing and general paperwork. It's the sort of thing I quite enjoy. "A tidy desk is a tidy mind" is a maxim I remember from my school days, and while I may have a mind that is very cluttered round the edges, I have a nice clean space in the middle in which to work.

 If I were not working tomorrow, I'd also enjoy that day as time free. Probably less so than today, but I might get down to a few household chores. If I were not working on Wednesday, I would be starting to claw the walls. In what is a busy freelance existence, three days are probably my limit of being at home with nothing organised to do. And that is probably the key. Nothing organised to do. Mercifully, on the cab journey from the studios to the station last Wednesday, my agent called to give me details of my next television job which will start this week.

 When I left drama school I was incredibly lucky in that I went straight into a job four weeks later. That meant  at the end of term in mid-July I was able to regard the intervening four weeks as a holiday before starting rehearsals in London in early August 1978. My first job with an extension, and a three-week break for Christmas (it sounds like heaven doesn't it, and indeed it probably was at the time) finished in late March 1979. Then jobless, agentless,   and probably slightly clueless, it was time to face the world.

I didn't have an idea as to where my next work would come from, and I knew that this was the testing time that I had been told about by tutors at drama school and indeed actors with whomI had just spent a heavenly eight months working. Unemployment.

 I had plans, however. My first objective for this period of "resting" was to give up sugar. At that time any cup of coffee or tea that passed my lips had to do so sweetened by at least four spoonfuls of sugar, and I decided that wasn't good. So my target was to eliminate it from my diet. It took 10 days to 2 weeks to do so, but it did mean that early April 1979 I had a sense of achievement. I didn't have a job. I didn't have a hope of a job. But I had achieved something.

There were plenty of people who said, with a knowing look and a surreptitious wink "Ah, so you are 'resting' now?" How that delicate euphemism can annoy. When one is unemployed one is not resting. In fact most actors are probably working harder than when they are actually in employment. In  the halcyon days of 1979, we were allowed to sign on the dole with no worries  that our career would be investigated or that we would be asked to apply for some unsuitable desk job or join some illusionary government training scheme. I did try to get work, and spent one whole morning in a telesales office in Manchester, before inventing an imaginary agent with an imaginary interview in an imaginary place called Leeds for that very afternoon. I never went back.

 Young actors undergoing periods of unemployment these days have no such luxury. Their first target is to earn enough money to live. This can so often take up so much time  that trying to apply any thought or energy to ones career progression is difficult. People can spend the first two weeks of their unemployment trying to get a temporary job, and never lift a finger to send an email regarding work of a more theatrical kind. We all have to live. This is not resting. This is fighting for survival.

It's very hard to find that perfect job that allows you have time off to follow your career, and yet gives you that much-needed pay packet each week to keep you going. I've been very lucky in that I have had to do very few non-acting based jobs. I may have got myself into severe financial difficulties at times, but I think I've done six weeks in a wine bar, and one stint as a caller in a bingo hall.

There are lots of  jobs around that do call on your acting skills. At the very top end of that market is the corporate world, about which, as regular readers of my blog will know, I have written a book. "So you want to be a Corporate actor?". (Published by Nick Hern books and currently available on their website and on Amazon.  (Commercial break over)

There are agencies such as the excellent Kru Live, run by the wonderful Tom Eatenton, who use lots of actors in their promotional and exhibition work.  Check out their website.

 Of course there will be days when you can't even get any of this work,  and you have to be happy with your own company. It's difficult. The longest period out of work I've ever had was from the beginning of December 1981 until August 1982 and I found it very hard both financially and psychologically. The thing that helped was to have targets. Things that I wanted to achieve and could achieve within the confines of being unemployed. There were down days. I got down to the last two for a major role in the West End, and the news that I didn't get it didn't help. There was light at the end of the tunnel, but as that was a job that didn't start until August, it was hard to see that light in the dim days of February.

What have I learnt about coping with these periods of unemployment since then?

The time to set your objectives for what you're going to do when you're unemployed is while you're in work. Tackle this thorny problem during the last 10 days of the job. Don't leave it till the first Monday morning when you wake up and know that you don't have any work that day. Unemployment is your next job. You wouldn't turn up for rehearsals or filming having done no prep. Don't turn up for unemployment that way either.

Both the young actors I have mentored over the last two years at The Actors Centre, have had periods of unemployment, despite being very successful. To both of them I advised  "During your last week of work, book a workshop or a class.  Something that you will do next week." 

Ideally put four or five things into your diary for the first two weeks of unemployment. 

A face-to-face meeting with your agent just to tell them how much you enjoyed the job. Ten minutes in their company may remind them who you are.  

A lunch with someone you haven't seen for a long while, and who you'd like to catch up with. A theatre trip to see something you know you'd like (and now you have got the time to go and queue early morning for day seats).  

A trip home to catch up with your family. Always better to do this in the first week after a job while you're on a post-work high, rather than to do it four weeks later when you're firmly set in unemployment.

 Treat your unemployment like you would your employment. Plan for it. Set yourself targets, and work out how you're going to deal with it. Don't spend your whole day being an out of work actor. Be a person. Remember when you do get an interview or audition it's the person they want to meet.

 The very best piece of advice I was ever given was from a tutor at drama school who said

"Do at least one thing each day that might lead to work, and then get on with being who you are!"

I still try to abide by that today.