claytoncast

There are some occasions when I sit down to dictate this blog, and face the blank screen, to find that I have absolutely no idea what I want to say. This is one of them. In life I am not a person who is normally lost for words. I suspect that if I were ever invited to take part on "Just A Minute", one of my favourite Sunday lunchtime programmes which I've just finished listening to, I'd do rather well. Not sure how I might do on the "No deviation" rule though. There have been no unexpected trips to hospital, no really exciting personal events, and no work. We've just had our nephew Marcus staying with us for a week, and he's been doing work experience at the Victoria Palace Theatre on "Billy Elliot",  something that Richard had arranged for him to do as part of his college course. He's doing a BTEC in stage technical skills and has an ambition to work as a sound operator on live events, or in the theatre. I think the fact that

So over the course of my career I've managed three separate appearances in "Doctors" on BBC1. First of all cutting my hand on a rusty saw while visiting a father who was suffering from pigeon fancier's lung. Secondly playing an attention seeking angina sufferer with a cancer laden wife, and finally my most challenging  role of all, a heterosexual schoolfriend of Diane Keene who was trying to woo her again after 30 years. In my corporate work I have had hundreds of illnesses for doctors training courses all over the country. Mercifully my real-life encounters with hospitals have been few and far between. However last night Mr Howle and I nearly ended up appearing in the next series of the fabulous Channel 4 programme "24-hours in A and E"  A casual comment from a well-meaning friend before Christmas about an increase in the number of creases on my ear, evidently thought to be a sign of proclivity to heart problems, had made me think about my health.

It's  always interesting as to what can call back part of your life that you'd forgotten. A quick memory or casual incident that probes deeper into events and times that are lying dormant. They say there's a book in all of us, and indeed it seems like there is. My current oeuvre "So you want to be a corporate actor?" is now in the typesetting process, and how exciting it is to see it laid out on the page. All my random scribblings formatted into something professional and eye-catching.  I will be talking about it at the " Surviving  Actors" fair at the Radisson Blu hotel in London next Saturday, February 9 at  11:30 AM  and for those of you who just can't wait to get your hands on a copy, there will be a prepublication offer for all people attending the seminar.  It was while I was off "being a corporate actor" in Rotterdam this week that part of my distant memory was stirred. Rather than pay the somewhat hefty prices of the bar, or t