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Showing posts from 2019

Bear with it

There can't be many actors who didn't have to suffer the process of animal studies at drama school. Mine came in my first year. I remember thinking "what has this got to do with acting?". To which end  I chose to be a snake who was asleep. It was soon pointed out to me by the rather excellent, if barking, movement teacher we had that snakes had no eyelids and slept with their eyes open, so my initial plan of slithering into a corner of the movement studio and catching 40 minutes kip was halted. The number of animals I have played in my career is exactly one,  if we discount a short scene as the front end of the cow in "Dick Whittington" in York in the late 70s where the calibre of animal performers was rather higher than one might have thought. The cat was played by one Gary Oldman. I remember being rather jealous of the fact that he didn't have any lines to learn. He also got away without being involved in a rather energetic "milking" routin

Poppy Pride

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So I shall wear my poppy this year with an extra bit of pride. The Second World War was the greatest event in my mother's life. I can't imagine how it must have felt setting off at the age of nineteen to join the ATS as she did. Stationed in Kent near Maidstone, she was a plotter. She placed the position of enemy aircraft on maps during the Battle of Britain and throughout the rest of the war. You could hear the pride in her voice whenever she spoke of the five years she had given up for her country. It had given her a sense of community, a sense of belonging, and a sense of camaraderie and importance that she would use throughout her life. On a trip into Kent one Sunday in her late 80s, she pointed out to Richard and I, a pub in a charming little village. This was where she had spent the night of her 21st birthday "getting a little merry" as she put it and from where she and other members of her squadron staggered back down country lanes to find they had missed l

Autumn Harvest

I'm very lucky that as autumn begins to creep its way across the garden, I am able to take advantage of my own little harvest work wise. Each year during September and October I work for a large corporate client, staging some large conferences. With one in the sun and one nearer home I’m helping a group of people who have now become good friends be at their best on stage.  The fact that it’s meeting up with people whom I greatly respect, and who shine in their jobs, who are now entering the unfamiliar world of a live event means that we have a great exchange of knowledge. I always learn something from them, an incredible successful company with a fantastic record, and I would hope that they learn something from me. It’s a good time to highlight what we do well as actors. Punctuality is the thing that always brings to mind. Actors are on time. Given that it’s very difficult to get. rid of somebody for bad acting-after all, who can say what is bad? -punctuality or lack of it - is

Netflix and ill

There can be a lot of guilt in a life as an actor. When we are doing something pleasurable during the day -  a winter's afternoon visit to the cinema,  a mid-week picnic in the countryside or an unplanned day by the sea - and yetwe know that we should really be working. Except that somebody forgot to tell all our potential employers, so hence th time for us to indulge in a little trip. I'm lucky I no longer have that feeling of not being able to relax at Christmas because there is no prospect of a job booked in for January. The thought that all the festivities, all the food, and all the money that one spends, was not going to be easily replaced by work in the coming year. But the guilt can still be there.  The feeling that I should be doing something and I'm not. Or not what I'd planned. Following the passing of my Mum at the end of May, and all the arrangements that followed it, I was looking forward to a lazy summer but with just the right amount of things to ke

Breaking the habit

I 've always believed that habits are a good thing.  When I'm in the habit of doing something, it gets done. Yet it can take so little to break the pattern. I'm very proud of having broken the habit of drinking twenty years ago, and possibly a little smug at having broken the habit of smoking nine months ago. Having done that, I'm still looking to get into the habit of eating a little less, but I'm pleading mitigating circumstances for the comfort food. This blog is a habit. Writing it at least once a month is something I've managed for the last eight or so years, even when there has been little to say. The last two months have provided me with a lot to say, but not how to say it. It's been a busy time in ways good and bad. Some nice projects, and some changes in my personal circumstances. Losing my mother at the end of May was heartrending and shocking and yet, in many ways a relief as she had spent nearly two years on end-of-life care sleeping for most o

Waiting Around

As actors we spend a lot of our lives waiting. Waiting to hear, waiting to work, waiting for work and waiting for people to see our work. Much of our time seems to be spent with the never boiling watched kettle. How much easier it is to have time full of things to do. To leave the audition room and plunge back into the world of work rather than let the hours drift slowly by waiting for the no. If it ever comes. It’s not unknown to wait for quite a while and then to get a yes. I’ve just spent two or three weeks waiting for the results of meetings I had. Both turned into offers. Sadly, in the interim, my diary has changed and I can only take one of the jobs. It’s always great to be offered work, and its even nicer to do it. But one cannot wait around. Many years ago I waited nearly three weeks for the result of a series of interviews for a West End role. I was in my early twenties and it was the biggest job interview I had been for. By week three, the long hours of unemployment were

Old, Wiser, and Free to Roam

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They say you first feel old when the policeman start looking younger. Believe me it's not just the policemen. There are many job titles which impose a sense of gravitas; CEO, Global director, Senior Manager, Consultant All of these titles for people who I would expect to be more experienced than me and older. Except, of course, these days they aren't. Last night my recurring character Roger Ffolkes made a return to Holby City. In Roger tradition, he basically came in to have a chat with Dom, played by the delightful and fabulous David Ames, but in order to get any conversational time with the young doctor, Roger nearly always has to undergo emergency major surgery. Last year I had an appendectomy or something similar. Last night I had a bowel resection and my heart stopped while I was on the operating table. That wasn't the greatest shock of the evening to me. In a scene I wasn't part of, and therefore let's be honest, hadn’t really taken much notice of in the

A Personal Project

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So 2019 got off to a great start."Ruffian on the Stair" came and went and proved a great success. Thanks to a fabulous team of people working on it, we were able to create something rather special. A piece of theatre that everyone working on it had a vested interest in. Brilliant design, fabulously atmospheric lighting, great sound, all created by a group of people who gave masses of time and love to the project. And of course three fantastic actors who, as one reviewer was right to point out, were "at the top of their game". I'm thrilled that, what was for me, a rather personal project became a special endeavour for everyone involved in it, and brought a lot of new people into the Hope Theatre to pack it out during the run. Having dinner after the show closed with the wonderful Adam Buchanan who played Wilson, I was asked "So has that given you a taste for doing more?" It is nearly seven years since I last directed. I was a little unsure of the an

The Room Where It Happens

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As I have grown older, my boredom threshold has grown infinitely shorter. I love the job where I just have to do a couple of days filming. The corporate market provides many opportunities where really big and demanding jobs can be over in four or five days and the one-off quality of the event, the one chance to get it right aspect, really appeals to my nature of being able to move on. So having spent the first three weeks of this year in a rehearsal room with the same three actors working on the same play marks a big behavioural departure for me. And I have loved it. This is the room where it happens. As an actor I can cope with the excitement of the preview and trying things out in front of an audience. I love the cards and presents of a press night. The excitement of showing something for the first time and, of course, the mix and mingle afterwards, but quite often by the Saturday at the end of that first week, I'm ready to get into my car and drive home and not return. Job d