claytoncast

This week saw the 10 th birthday of my goddaughter Teddy - or to be more baptismally correct, Theadora Anne Mahon Phillips. It's not her fault but it makes me feel old. She is now a fully functioning poet - her latest work regarding London the City would not have shamed my own efforts in creative writing class during the first year of drama school. I suspect they have been having classes in simile and metaphor, but it's a very adult minded and evocative effort. I remember waiting for Teddy to be born. I got a job out of it as Brian, her Dad, didn' t want to be away in Washington at the time she was due, so it helps remind me that during February 2000 I went off to Dubai and Washington on various corporate gigs. These days all one seems to manage is Hitchin . Work this week saw me spending two half days with a very senior lawyer from Nigeria - sadly not in Nigeria, but training him in presentation skills over here in London. As anyone in the entertainment indus...

As a freelancer it is rare that I work for a full week for the same hours each day. This week has been an exception with me running auditions for the National Youth Theatre each day and leaving home at 8.30am and getting back at 6pm - proper commuter hours. I don't know how Rich does it. By wednesday night I was tearing my hair out at the thought of the next day being just the same. true there was a little variety in that two days were in North London and four days were in Dulwich so on those four days i was able to drive the short ten minutes to Alleyns school, but the sheer regularity of it drive me mad. It's why I couldn't do a long run in the theatre any more unless it was a very nice part and at the National...and even then I would have to think about it..though actually at the National there would be nights off. Last time I did theatre in watford eighteen months ago I was screaming for it to end after a week of playing. It's why I love corporates. Big shows lots t...

Richard's in the club. No it's not a veiled way of announcing we are about to become parents! Rather to tell you that my gorgeous other half is a member of the rather exclusive Paramount Club in Central London. He's being going for a month or so now since his membership was approved but saturday evening was my first chance to be impressed and understand why he chose to pay the not insignificant membership fee to be part of the Paramount crowd. The club is on the top three floors of Centrepoint at Tottenham Court Road. So the location is great. You arrive through a private lift and check into what looks like a sort of Sky lounge from an episode of Thunderbirds. Whenever we visit foreign cities we always take a trip up their tallest building to have a look around. we have dined at the top of the John Hancock Tower in Chicago and the CNN tower in Toronto. We have soared to the top of the Empire State and have memories of a night time trip to the top of the Twin towers, and a ...

Regular readers who work their way through my normal litany of typing errors may be horrified to learn that this is being submitted from my I phone while on a day trip to Yorkshire. Do hang on on there and persevere. This is a very wobbly train. After a weekend of auditioning young actors at the Youth theatre a chance last night to see some proper acting in "Enron". Brilliantly staged and very theatrical it tells the story of the Enron scandal. Sam West us superb in the lead and the production is thrilling and constantly inventive. More than can be said for the vast majority of audition speeches I have witnessed over the last couple of days. Gone are the times of seven Viola's or Juliets a day finding rings or berating their nurses. These days it's all child abuse, illegitimate births and the like. If it doesn't involve pain then young actors don't think it's worth doing. They feel a need to show the acting. If it isn't miserable and depre...

When to blog and when not to blog...that is the question. When does one have items of interest to ones followers.? Hard to tell but I do feel that probably regular updates are the best thing. The weekend had us discovering another little local gem. We've lived here for five years now and yet Sunday afternoon was the first time we have ventured into Dulwich and Sydenham Hill Woods. A small enclave at the top of Sydenham hill, the woods are centred around the now disused old High level railway line that served Crystal Palace. The top end of the woods sees the mouth of the disused tunnel, a tad spooky and covered over now to stop intruders. the woods are full of winding paths, have their own Victorian folly, and footbridge and were the spot where Pissaro painted the now defunct Lordship Lane Station= that is he painted a picture of the station - he wasn't into decorating! . Sunday afternoon sees them as a haven for Dulwich dogs running wildly through the undergrowth while their o...