claytoncast

If you have a good agent whom you trust and who works well for you, one of the benefits of finishing a long piece of work, such as the 7 weeks I've just done on "Him and Her" series 4, will be that in the 1st week after finishing work you'll be plunged back into the  world of castings. As actors we do hundreds of what are essentially job interviews. My partner has probably done three job interviews  in the whole of his working life (He got all three jobs I have to point out), and for many people job interviews are a source of great stress and tension and worry. This can also be the case for actors. Having sat on both sides of the desk hours as actor and as director casting my own productions, I have seen people so desperate for the work that no vestige of a real personality transmits itself. It's difficult. You want the job, and yet you don't want to appear as though you're in the last chance saloon. The best time to go for interviews is when you...

It's always good when you  have just done something new in your career, and yesterday saw the end of the filming of series 4 of "Him and Her". Despite the extensive amount of television that I've done, this is the first time I have been on a series for the whole length of the shoot. I can't pretend it hasn't been hard, and I can't pretend at times that it hasn't been repetitive and a little boring, but I can say that it's been the hugest amount of fun working with the nicest people, and a very very talented crew. It will be absolutely fantastic to see the finished show in the autumn. It being in the hands of an extremely capable director, one knows that it will end up looking brilliant, and having read what are just simply superb scripts, I think that people who tune in and watch it will have 5 weeks of brilliant observational television comedy.  For the rest of August, September, and most of October it looks like I'm back to the ...

That's a wrap. Those are the words that lift your heart at the end of a long day's filming. And we've certainly had some long days during the filming of "Him and Her" series four "The Wedding.  This Saturday, 17 August will be saying those words for the final time as filming draws to a close. After a read through in London in a week of rehearsals in Bloomsbury, the whole unit decamped to a secret location just outside St Albans to recreate a day in the life of a group of people involved in a wedding. It's really difficult for me to say more without infringing what I'm allowed to tell you, but I am about to say that it's been great fun if hard work. Usually the months of July and August are by definition holiday months. People are away, and very few firms do any training in the  summer months, so work prospects during that time can be quite fallow, particularly in my area of strength, the corporate field.  In past years I've invol...

So it's been a busy week. I think I may have started a previous blog with the same words, but it's true. Monday saw some corporate work in London and then an evening theatre visit to see the lovely Joan Iyiola in "'A season in the Congo"-a very enjoyable and theatrically exciting retelling of a piece of history of the Congo. Some of the gang from :Him and Her" Series 4 filming Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, saw a trip up to Yorkshire to see Mum, and Friday and Saturday saw more filming in our top secret location……. near St Albans. Ooops! Although it's impractical to go up to Yorkshire in the car on every visit, it's great when I have the opportunity to do so. Mum is still very keen as she approaches 92 years of age, to keep as active as possible and most of her days involve a trip into Rotherham  if only to sit and have a coffee in the bus station cafe  and chat to one of the many people she knows who go there. To have me at her beck a...