claytoncast

One thing that I enjoy about boat life since moving aboard in the summer are the chores. Mundane little tasks that must be accomplished to keep things on an even keel if Youyou’ll pardon the maritime pun. Filling the water tank, emptying the toilet cassettes, charging the battery, and now as we move into the winter, laying a fire, and topping up the coolant for the central heating and the engine. Sometimes when the days stretch empty before me, the knowledge that some of these tasks must be completed is what gives my day shape. This week, after a wait of a couple of months, I’ve acquired a water tank nozzle fitting. An exciting addition. No longer do I have to climb out onto the front deck and put the hosepipe into the tank and then return to the rear deck, or poop deck as it might be on a larger vessel and connect the water to the pontoon bollard. Now due to a state-of-the-art water nozzle the hose pipe is connected to the water tank permanently and I can lean off the rear deck an

As the end of 2022 comes into sight, it amazes me what a rollercoaster it’s been. After seven months filming, I am now making my way through conference season working with one of my favourite clients to stage several conferences. This means I’ve been at home much more and there has been more time for thoughts to slip through the cracks of my defences. Thoughts how my life has changed. Thoughts what I have gained and what I have lost, and time for reflection on the entire process. Not helped because on a lot of flights across to Europe in the last 10 days I’ve been watching the brilliant series 5 of “The Crown”. I watch it out of loyalty after my brief but very remunerative appearance in season two, and it was nice to see several mates popping up in this season for what I hope were healthy inputs into their bank account. I couldn’t care whether it’s fiction or fact. It’s a story. I think at the beginning we all took it as fact because it was so far in the past and now as it nears our ow

For more years than I can remember the autumn for me has meant conference season. It’s a time to replenish the bank account and to work with a fabulous production team. It allows me to spend time with friends who work for one of the largest companies in the Uk, as I prep them for going on stage at their annual conference. It involves foreign travel and a late burst of sunshine.   This year, having spent seven months making a new tv series for a streaming service, I stepped into my conference director's shoes somewhat fatigued. Seven months of full on filming, moving house, becoming a single man again, and my patience has been sorely tried. Staging a conference requires infinite patience and this year mine, alas, was in short supply. And yet we did it. And not only did we stage two days of meetings, a barbecue and a gala dinner with the fabulous Me and Mrs Jones doing the disco, but I also took to the stage.   One presentation of thirty minutes repeated back to back four times. Ha

Thank You Ma'am  Being abroad at the time of the Queens passing, I wasn’t aware of the reflective nature of the country until I returned two days later. For so many of us, the loss the country has suffered has provided a moment to engage with our own sense of loss and to think of those we have no more. I have finished filming on the project that I cannot name, and moved on into my annual stint of conference directing, but as we brought my filming to a close, a lovely thing happened. They asked me, as is often the case, to provide photographs from my past to decorate my characters flat. On sitting down to shoot our first scene,my fellow actor pointed to a photograph and asked, “Who’s that?” And there she was. Mum. Eating her way through an ice cream on Brighton pier with me keeping watch. How brilliant to see it on the mantelpiece of my fictional home. It made me well up, of course, but I know she would be proud to have been there watching over me. She’s doing that now. There is a p

 It's four months since I sat down and last dictated to this blog and here I am in a totally different environment now in front of my computer monitor trying to catch up. Last time I chatted, I was talking about NDA's. Nondisclosure agreements. Well it certainly seems that I've kept up with mine. I haven't really disclosed anything for quite a while and there's been a lot going on.  I'm still not allowed to say, officially, what it is that I've been doing. It's necessitated a lot of trips to the north of England and a lot of days filming and it's been a joy. At a time when things in my personal life weren't exactly as successful as I might have wanted them to be, work stepped into the breach and gave me the job of my career. Working with wonderful actors on a wonderful script for nearly seven months has convinced me that after all the things I've done over the last 65 years - directing, corporate role-play, facilitation, creative director for

So in an ideal world, this blog would tell you everything that I’m up to. Except that in a professional sense, I can’t tell you anything about what I’m doing, as I’m bound by the terms of an NDA. For the uninitiated, that’s an acronym for non disclosure agreement, an increasingly popular device that actors have to sign in the world of self taping so that nobody knows what they’re doing, sometimes not even the actors themselves.  I can throw all the preparations given at drama school about having to read the whole play in order to get a grip on character out of the window as they send us 6 to 8 pages to turn into a rounded performance.  We have to make our decisions on the character and on portrayal from the information available to us, which can be sparse in the extreme.  If it’s a self tape for a decent part with a couple of scenes, then it’s quite possible to build up a head of steam and characterisation. It can be more difficult when it’s two lines as “Drunken Lawyer”. That means th

One of the greatest piazzas in the world is St Mark’s Square. I remember arriving there in a windswept motor launch from Venice airport on a cold March evening. The next morning we walked into a snow-covered square in bright sunshine, weather which revealed its full beauty. Last I have took refuge in St Mark’s Square. Alas, not the one in Venice, but the new St Mark’s Square complex which is  home to Bromley’s Premier Inn. With a busy week including read throughs of the television series and a hospital appointment, the last thing I needed on Sunday morning was Richard testing positive for Covid. Come to think of it, I think it was the last thing he needed as well. Having tested negative on the Friday and Saturday, I took another test which was also negative and decided that the only course of action to be taken was to seek refuge in the Premier. A few items flung into a suitcase and iPad and phone clutched in my bag, I set off for the delights of what many might consider to be Bromley’

 As far as my birthday is concerned, I have never been one for hiding my light under a bushel. "Oh I don't celebrate birthdays" one hears some people cry. I do. I most certainly do, and for anybody who wants to get involved, my 65th birthday will be celebrated next week on March 8.  Yes I will be becoming an OAP, but it won't lessen the fact that the birthday will be celebrated. There have been some great ones over the years.  An evening out with all my fellow members of the RSC on a nightclub boat called the Tuxedo Princess in Newcastle.  A quiz night in the Polish club in Balham.  Taking over half of Joe Allen's for a particularly recent milestone. All of them highly enjoyable occasions. And there have been holidays. Birthday holidays. A fabulous spa week in Saint Lucia, trips to New York, Venice, Bath, Istanbul, Dubai, and Rotherham  have all added a particular gloss to March 8. That's March 8, in case you hadn't managed to make a note of it yet. With R

  So we’ve made it into February, which I always see as completing the first great hurdle of the year. My January has been hard. Much harder than I ever thought possible. A lot of personal introspection and hopefully reformation, and some fundamental changes to how I live my life. All on a very personal level, so not something to divulge here, but so many friends have come into their own as I have worked my way through the month Sometimes it’s easy to forget how long one has known someone, and there is nothing like a crisis to throw a long friendship into perspective. Their love for me, and their words of guidance have been an enormous wall of support for which I am immensely grateful. I accomplished the transition into February at a health spa. While I’m a big fan of a spa day, I’ve never done a full week’s detox course. So it was that last Sunday afternoon, Richard dropped me off in the wilds of Northamptonshire for just that very thing. We had lunch at the village pub just before th