claytoncast

It varies each year, but there's a cut-off date in the weeks leading up to Christmas when you know that if you're not working by then, you won't be working again until January. As someone who did his last pantomime nineteen years ago, this has never worried me and Christmas with my partner, and family and friends is something I relish. I can't imagine how I ever spent most of December and the whole of January doing two shows a day away from home, and trying to cope with all the demands of the festive season as well. This year, my working year finished rather early as we had  a holiday heading off to Mauritius on November 29. This meant that November was my last working month of the year. I had been offered two jobs that both were to take place in early December However they were unable to fix their filming dates for after 7 December which was our return, so both jobs had to be turned down. We have a rule in our house that once a holiday is booked, a holiday is taken,

A really nice little corporate job before Christmas with Kru live, a company who look after their actors. Suitable for personable actors and actresses with little corporate experience and a good chance to get in with a company with a lot of work. Rebecca is happy to answer any questions you have if you e mail her on the address below Paul We are looking for more than 300 fantastic hosts and hostesses to assist and support the HP DISCOVER 2015 event in London! Dates: Tuesday 1st Wednesday 2nd Thursday 3rd (You do not need to be available for all dates.) Roles: There will be over 12,000 delegates arriving from all over the world to attend the event! With this in mind, we required 300+ staff members over the 5 days, where roles will include meeting and greeting delegates at Paddington, Heathrow and St. Pancras. We will also have staff based at ExCeL, where the event is taking place. Hours: The average shift is 6/7 hours long but we have 4hr shifts as wel

As I prepare to enter my fifth decade as an actor - for the next two years I'm referring to myself as "approaching 60" rather than giving people the benefit of a specific number - I begin to wonder whether I will ever achieve a state of content. I certainly didn't come into this profession for security. The idea of having to leave the house every day at the same time to get to the same place to do the same work would drive me to distraction as the incredible variety of work that I am given is part of what keeps me going. I suppose people looking in from the outside might regard me as doing well. The joy of having been in two great sitcoms. Jobs as regular characters in soap operas, other fun television appearances and theatre stuff besides. I know I've been lucky. Thanks to a healthy corporate career I manage to keep my bank manager happy too. And yet I haven't got to that stage whereby I feel I can rest on my laurels. Job finishes. On the f

It's that time of year when a whole new batch of drama graduates are beginning to realise that they are heading towards the moment when the real world beckons. Already in the middle of their autumn term of the final year of drama school, a sword of Damocles, is hanging over their head in the form of agent selection, employment possibilities, and the real wide world of making a living as an actor. Over the last couple years, The Actors Centre has engaged in a much more positive and immediate way with graduates. The Alan Bates award has become much sought after and over 60% of graduates from manageable schools next year will probably apply for it. I think I would too as one looks at the prize fund. Not only a huge selection of work goodies such as Equity membership, Spotlight membership, show reel, voice reel, workshop credit and professional mentoring, but a goodie bag of books, fabulous Ted Baker clothes, and the sort of things that just make you feel good. As part of

I really can't believe where the time has gone this year. In just a few weeks,we will be celebrating one year in our new home, a place we absolutely adore living in, and yet I am still supposedly looking forward to summer which seems to have passed me by. Possibly I was working that day, but here we are with the falling leaves of autumn, conkers strewing the road to the station, and that smoky bonfire night smell in the air. Already time to be going out to talk to a whole new year of drama graduates. The Actors Centre has really got its act together about arranging talks for drama schools. My brief is to ensure that these talks are not just boring chats  about the Actors Centre itself. If they are to be successful the sessions have to ask the graduates what are their fears and their expectations of the world outside the haven of drama school, and how can the Actors Centre help them in making this transition. On Monday afternoon it was a trip down to Guildford School of

There is a small group of my friends who celebrate our significant birthdays within 18 months of each other. Celebrations started last night for the first of the Sixtieths, and will draw to a close in 18 months time with my own special birthday. I like the number 60. In fact I have decided that rather than use the epithets of the late 50s, for the next 18 months I shall respond  "approaching 60" when questioned about my age. My agent of course has beaten me to it. Not in terms of her own age, but  given the fact that she's been putting me up for roles of 60 and over for at least the past four years. But then I've always played older, and I don't have a problem about ageing up. I'm not worried about losing touch with my inner child. In fact he emerges every day-just ask my partner! But I don't have any fear approaching what my friend Janet referred to in her birthday speech last night as "the  autumn of our years". It is not the first time on

They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks, and yet as you become an old dog, you realise that new passions come along rarely and when they do, you should seize them with both hands and enjoy them. This summer, August loomed a little empty in my diary. Yes, I am supposed to be editing the first draft of my new book "The Working Actor" which aims to be published in December this year, but I have no major work commitments and no filming. For the last two summers I have spent August in front of the camera. Two years ago in a rather sweaty and moist wedding marquee for the final series of "Him and Her - The Wedding" and last year on intermittent filming days bedecked in velvet and fur for my brief appearance in "Wolf Hall”. This year my diary for August was looking a little like a heavy snowfall - all white. That didn't necessarily worry me, though I have to say I am not at my best when I don't have a deadline, and having commitments to

So it's been a while since I've actually done any theatre. I decided to turn down the Park Theatre's production of "Lady Anna" although having been very kindly offered it. A play at the Royal Court didn't work out, and my summer window for fitting something theatrical in is getting shorter. However what has not been denied to me are theatre visits. Having a partner who is in theatre in the higher echelons of management means we get to go often, and many trips are a joy. The best trip of all is to see a mate in a show which one actually enjoys and can make a day of. Such an opportunity presented itself this week when I went down to Bath to see the gorgeous Anita Dobson in "She Stoops to Conquer" at the Theatre Royal. The trip also provided an opportunity for me to introduce Alan Bates finalist Ryan Hayes to Anita who will be his mentor for this year as part of our new mentorship scheme "You and Me". I'm a punctual boy, preferrin

Having just come back from our summer holiday and long days of snoozing on sunbeds, it's made me more aware of the fact that we're heading into those three days that here in Britain we call summer.  I always associate summer with not being a particularly busy time, although in the last few years this has certainly not proved to be the case. Two years ago I spent most of July and the whole of August filming the final series of "Him and Her - The Wedding" and last year I spent several hot days combating the pressure  of fur and velvet in "Wolf Hall" -   more of that in an upcoming column in  The Stage.  My main feelings about summer though, are that it is a time when one has to find something to do. A time when one has to be inventive, and create work for oneself. I'm expecting a draft of my next book back from my publishers soon, so long summer days will be spent correcting the proof, appalled at my misuse of the comma, and reworking sections. Having

 It is seven years since I last did any theatre and that's a rather frightening thought. Hermann Kafka in a rather fabulous production by Sarah Esdaile  of "Kafka's Dick" by Alan Bennett at Watford Playhouse. A fabulous cast, four weeks rather enjoyable rehearsals and then the play was on. We had a relatively short run for two weeks after the press night, but by the end of that time I was longing to move onto something else. These days my boredom threshold is quite low, and going into something for three or four days and then moving on suits me absolutely fine.  Yet theatre was what I trained for. My desire to become an actor born out of school plays and plays created with neighbours children in back gardens during long summer holidays. My training was almost entirely theatre based, apart from two weeks in my second year doing a piece of theatre in front of some television cameras. When you left drama school in the late 1970s, theatre was what you were expected t

I consider it a great honour to be chairman of the actors Centre in Covent Garden, and from the moment I took up the post, I promised myself, and the team in the building that I would not be a chairman who was in any way inactive. Some people probably find me a nuisance and an irritation, some like the fact that I'm around. Whatever the thought, I'm determined that during my time in the role, The Actors Centre will increase its profile, and the role it has to play in the lives of so many working actors today. Primarily I consider this to be of most value to those who are just about to graduate, or those who are in the first few years after graduating, from drama school. This is the time in which you try and find a pattern that will help you through life. A way of combining your first love, acting, with whatever else it is you will do that will support you, as you make the transition from eager hopeful into working actor. Some of these graduates will  turn into stars, w

So it's Easter, and whether we like it or not, the calendar is dictating to us that we take a break. A four day weekend stretching out for us to enjoy our leisure. Not good if you're already enjoying enforced leisure in the form of unemployment. Then it's just two extra days when the phone is unlikely to ring. In the first period of unemployment after leaving college about eight months into my career I had a telephone installed in the bedsit that I still occupied from my student days. Cream, with a shiny dial (Yes, I am that old!), it stood by the bed , and became a huge focus for me during my first period of unemployment. Every day I would will it to ring. And of course on Sundays and holidays, there was little chance that even if it did, it would lead to work. These days our careers are such more twenty four hour affairs. Even today, Easter Sunday, I've had a phone call from a TV director regarding a current project. E mail, phone calls and texts can get to us at

So I'm sitting here in the Concorde room which is the very posh part of the First Class Lounge of BA at JFK in New York and thinking to myself "it's not bad".  There may be a big snowstorm outside, but I've just spent a week with an actor colleague and a consultant delivering a show on presentation technique to lawyers in Washington and then New York. One ninety minute show delivered on four out of the nine days we were away, so not a bad workload. In New York, the huge conference room stretched from Wall Street at one end to Broadway at the other, so for the few minutes I worked that end of the room, I could be said to have played Broadway. Hopefully over 500 lawyers are now better presenters and I was lucky enough to spend five days in one of my favourite cities, New York. When in NYC I always try and make a theatre visit. Richard was over here a great deal during the last ten years for various shows, and we spent a lot of nights in Broadway theatres. Mercif

This year is positively flying by. It's already the middle of February and I'm not sure where the time has gone. Perhaps it's because as I get older, time moves faster. The theory is that each day is a smaller fraction of my existing life, and therefore moves more quickly. I'd like to think that it's because I've been busy. Mercifully that has been the case since the year started. A mix of corporate jobs to replenish the bank account, and some enjoyable and engaging filming on a new series in Northern Ireland. Albeit in temperatures of -3°C with no  protective layer of underclothing. Period costume can be quite exposing. Sadly my contract prevents me from a picture, but suffice it to say, silk shirts, wigs and lots of white faced seedy acting went on.  It's a difficult time of year if your calendar is not full. Everybody busy talking about new starts, and lots of magazine quizzes on "How to Get a New You" can leave you  with that cold and

So popular they are queuing in the street! Last Monday evening the Actors Centre was absolutely packed to the gills with new talent. 130 of this year's graduates came along to our "Moving Up" Event.  This is only the second time we have run this event and it's proved an incredibly successful and popular evening. A chance for anyone graduating from drama UK approved drama courses in 2015 to come along and see what the Actors Centre is all about. Most actors have heard of the Actors Centre. It's been in existence now for nearly 40 years, and everybody thinks it's incredibly worthwhile. But an awful lot of people wouldn't actually be able to tell you where it is. They know how good it is, and but they haven't actually been there themselves. Just to clear this up, it's actually in Tower Street in Covent Garden, the sort of place that is incredibly well located, and great for meeting up with your colleagues, your friends, and your peers. There

Start as you mean to go on. An apt phrase to run ones life by in these early January days. For me at the moment, that would mean a year of sneezing, snoozing, snot and handkerchief washing. Yes, that long awaited cold which I thought was going to rear its head on many occasions since the late summer finally took hold last Sunday and has laid me low for the past week. Mercifully it waited till we had returned from our sojourn in The North, as the A1 signposts would have us say, and allowed me to wallow in misery in the cosy environs of our new home. The good thing is that after a days bed rest and a days sofa rest, it allowed me to use one whole day to finish the first draft of my new book "The Working Actor" which means that I've done something productive during the first week of the New Year. I'm a little superstitious like that. Thinking that the first day of the year will dictate how the rest of the year will follow. I used to be incredibly superstitious a