Most people, if they’re lucky, only do three or four job interviews in their life. A couple of shifts here, a rung or two up the ladder there, and before you know it you’re in a swivel chair with a pension scheme and a lanyard. Lovely. For actors, it’s different. We do them all the time. Weekly, sometimes daily. Except we don’t call them interviews. We call them auditions. These days, that often means a self-tape — two syllables that strike more fear into the average actor than “tax return”. Picture the scene: you, in front of the only bit of white wall in your flat that isn’t cracked, crooked or adorned with a poster of Les Mis. You’re trying to summon the emotions of a broken man while balancing your phone on a stack of cookbooks and praying the neighbour’s dog doesn’t start yapping during your big moment. You send it off, you wait, you hear nothing. Then weeks later you’re watching telly with a digestive and a cuppa when there it is — the very job you auditioned for, being play...
We’ve just returned from holiday. And if you asked whether I’d go away again tomorrow, I’d say yes—not for sun or sea or spiritual replenishment, but because I’d need another holiday to recover from the one just gone. Not the destination. Madeira was, in a word, sublime. Mountains above clouds, sunsets like oil paintings, a sort of dignified warmth that didn’t singe the scalp. Even the famous wicker toboggan ride—lunacy in a linen hat—was delightful. No, the trouble wasn’t the island. It was the journey. And by “the journey,” I mean British Airways. Though if we’re being honest, British Airways has become more of a concept than a company—a sort of floating rumour of service with the occasional aircraft attached. We stayed overnight at Gatwick. Business class—our little indulgence. Not for the champagne, but in the faint hope someone might actually answer a question. At 6.25pm we arrived, to find a queue that could only be described as biblical. If Moses had parted these people, he’d...
It’s that time again: the holiday. Or a holiday, I should say. I hesitate to make it sound more momentous than it is. Holidays for me have never been great set-piece events, carefully rationed out in annual quotas, as they are for most respectable people. I’ve always taken the view that if an opportunity for a few days away presents itself, it should be grabbed — like a reduced pork pie on a supermarket counter. That said, my partner Brayden has a proper job. You know, emails, policies, and somebody called Deborah in HR who approves his holiday requests. So we can’t just swan off as and when. We have to pick our moment, like a vicar choosing his text. This year, aside from a quick week in New York which barely counts — more an exercise in walking and ordering coffee wrong — we’ve not been away. So we’re off next Saturday. Madeira. Now, Madeira — if I’m being honest — has always existed for me primarily as a punchline in Up Pompeii — that wonderful seventies sitcom where Frankie Hower...
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