claytoncast

It was Christmas Eve, and everything was exactly as it should be. Brayden and I had returned from a Roman spa by the Strand, feeling utterly relaxed. The tree was decorated, presents wrapped, and we were dressed for dinner out. All was calm and bright, until my phone buzzed. A notification from Chase Bank informed me that someone had attempted to order £6.99 worth of Domino’s pizza in Liverpool. Odd, given that I’d spent the afternoon in a eucalyptus-scented haze nowhere near Liverpool. Moments later, my phone rang. No Caller ID. “Hi, this is Nigel from Chase Fraud Department.” Nigel. Not a name that inspires confidence, but the alert had just popped up, so I stayed on the line. He explained that someone had tried to set up a standing order for £350 to Amazon. “Was that you?” Certainly not, though given my spending habits, it was almost plausible. Nigel then asked for my account balances “to secure them for the record.” A crafty script, but something about his tone—a little too ba...

The prospect of Christmas has always filled me with excitement. As a small child, December felt endless, each day marked by opening tiny chocolate-filled doors on the advent calendar, counting down how many sleeps remained, and sneaking peeks in the back of my parents’ wardrobes to confirm if the Chad Valley Bandit Chase game had really arrived. That anticipation hasn’t faded with age—in fact, it has evolved. For many years, December has meant not just Christmas but also a holiday, sometimes both rolled into one. Yet, my ideal Christmas remains one spent at home. Last year, Brayden and I celebrated our first Christmas together aboard our boat, and it was nothing short of delightful. We enjoyed each other’s company, took a refreshing Christmas Day walk, indulged in a healthy Christmas lunch (well, the walk was healthy!), and topped the holiday off with a Boxing Day visit to the theatre. But the real cherry on top was a four-day trip to New York after the festivities. This year, howeve...

I've often commented that at this time of year, I desire to become a bear. I settle down in my den or cave with a hefty supply of nuts, berries, and whatever else I need and sleep until mid-February. For the first time this year, that's probably not the case. The big conference I've been working on for the last eighteen months took place in Glasgow at the start of October. It was a great success, even though I say it myself, and I came home with some empty days in my diary. And I'm not good with empty days. I've been fortunate that I have not stopped since we returned from Iceland in the summer. Three big TV pieces were filmed, followed by two conferences, which kept me busy in real terms and bulged my inbox. The last two weeks have seen too many empty days. There have been days with nothing in the diary, and I've been bad about arranging lunches and catch-ups. So that needs correcting. Now, things are lurching towards the end of the year, and retail is pus...

It's nice to have things you can rely on in life. A partner, friends, a working car. Just that feeling of getting up in the morning and trusting that life will be okay. Increasingly, a lot of what we rely on is digital. At the forefront of that, in my case, is my phone. I haven't upgraded my phone much to the chagrin of Apple's Accounts department since the iPhone 13. My phone has been reliable, effective, and a good friend. Last Saturday, while flying up to Glasgow, I decided to invest in the new iPhone 16 Pro Max. They've proved almost impossible to order from an Apple store, and the tech store at Heathrow Terminal 5 had one left with just the memory I required and in the colour I wanted. Titanium black. How proud was I? Of course, being the small boy who could never wait to open his Christmas presents, I tried to set up my phone on arrival in Glasgow in my hotel room. Hooking up both old and new phones to the hotel Wi-Fi. All went well. I never read instructions ...

When we were on holiday in the summer, I expressed a wish that I could have an acting job to keep me busy and inspired. Before starting the regular autumn season of corporate conferences, I was fortunate to have three. They've been great fun and varied, allowing me to work with some old friends and make new ones. All three productions will end up being shown within about two weeks of each other. Now it's back to the world of corporate conferences. Rehearsals have heightened, filming is taking place, videos and presentations are being prepared, and on a day-to-day basis, the emails I have to answer yes or no to fill my inbox. So it's a great treat this week to have Brayden's mum over from Canada. I arranged a little scheme with her so she could be here for his birthday at the end of the month. She's an absolute delight, and having lunch with your prospective mother-in-law is good fun, if not a little daunting. I'm fortunate that autumn brings familiar work....

I've got a confession to make. As an actor, I don't do research. I know that so many of us submerge ourselves in our roles before we start. It might well have been useful to have spent a couple of months working behind the counter of a cafe prior to filming The Full Monty a few years ago, but I rather hope I managed to perfect the preparation of the lettuce salad sandwich and my level of customer abuse without such thorough research. Twenty-six years ago or so, I played a hairdresser in the West End. The main thing I wanted to achieve was the lovely way they use their scissors balanced on the thumb and the third finger. I was dispatched to a hairdressing school for the afternoon and practised hopelessly to get my snipping action just right. I'm not sure that I ever did. On stage every night, I used to cover it up with some hasty combing, but what I did get right was the fact that my performance, outrageous and extravagant as it was, was nowhere near as flamboyant as the...

The proverbial wisdom is it's the early bird that catches the worm. I'm not sure I've ever really been an early bird. The first 10 or 15 years of my working career were based around theatre, where the day's climax was the evening and relaxation time didn't begin until 10.30 at night after a particularly long Shakespeare. It was the pub or dinner, and bed rarely came before 1 am in the morning. Rehearsals often dragged one out of bed the following day. But wherever possible, I would enjoy a lazy morning between the sheets. Revelry was quite often the cause of those lazy mornings, so when I gave up drinking 25 years ago, one of the benefits I discovered almost immediately was the fact that I had so much extra time as I woke by 8 most mornings. I could complete my to-do list for the day by 9.30 and have the day stretch in front of me with opportunities and possibilities. For the last three weeks, I have been dragged out of bed at 5 a.m. to get in the car at 5:30 to...

One of the things about life as an actor that's always fascinated me is that things can change overnight. When people used to tell us that it was a very insecure profession and that we really ought to get a proper job, we could say that there was always the possibility the phone would ring tomorrow. However, if you were a plumber, my favourite analogy, or an office worker, relocating yourself would suddenly be much more complicated if you were out of work. As people who don't have a routine, we may value a bit of steadiness, but change is good. I spent the last two weeks having an adventure, driving around Iceland with my partner, something I've always considered doing. Everything changed daily; the landscape, from mountains to lava scapes to waterfalls to icebergs, was brilliant and magnificent beyond belief. Every night, the hotel changed, never unpacking our cases properly but just opening them to take out the things we needed and moving on the next day. I think if t...

Looking out of the boat's windows this morning, it's a pretty gloomy day, and the dilemma of what to wear presents itself. Yesterday was bright, gorgeous, warm sunshine, and it was easier to decide. This constant climate change makes you think about what's in your wardrobe. And it's compounded at this time of year by the fact that when I pull something out of the dressing room to say “Yes, I'll wear this today.” I think, “Oh no, I'd better keep that because we're going on holiday.” Childhood holidays in Yorkshire always meant two sets of best clothes, probably with a new holiday sweater, two pairs of shorts and swimming trunks, and some bright t-shirts for playing in on the beach. But that was the fashion-conscious Bridlington. My partner and I are setting off on an twelve-day, thousand-mile self-drive road trip around Iceland. It's a huge adventure that will require wardrobe planning. Every night, a different hotel. So, no throwing things in the c...

For the first time in many months, I’m getting onto a train at King’s Cross heading north. Three hours to Newcastle and tomorrow a chance to speak to some young drama students about the world and its opportunities. This train journey holds a mix of emotions for me. The familiar route up north, once a regular part of my routine to visit my mum, now carries a sense of nostalgia tinged with sadness since her passing in 2019. It’s a bittersweet experience to revisit these memories after such a significant loss. Although I haven't made the journey as frequently since my mum's passing,I still make occasional visits to Grimm and Co, the wonderful children's charity I support in my home town of Rotherham. These visits provide me with a sense of purpose and connection to the community that raised me offering a bright spot amid the more sombre memories of this journey. Making my way through King's Cross, perhaps the bustling station feels different now, quieter and less famili...

There have been many times in my life when whole days have passed without a conversation with another human being. Days reduced to a quick thank you or enquiry in a shop or a passing hello in the foyer of a block of flats. These days, with messaging apps and email, we don’t need to have conversations. One thing I noticed during my first few months alone on my boat was that I had no chats. Just What’s App exchanges. Today, the sun is trying to poke through rain clouds, which are producing an almost biblical downpour here in East London. And it would be the perfect morning where in the past I would have picked up the telephone and had chats with friends. Now that’s reduced to a few quick text messages to plan or to check that people are OK. The good thing is that my partner works from home three days a week and although his conversations often are into headphones with people in other parts of the world, the sound of another voice on the boat is both comforting. Today he’s in the o...

I couldn't have wished for a better festive season.We had happy and full days on the boat. Nice meals, nice food, nice company. Wonderful presents and all shared with the most wonderful person. A visit to see "Sunset Boulevard"-a fantastically rewarding reinterpretation with an absolutely off the scale, star performance from Nicole Scherzinger. A fabulous evening in the theatre on Broadway to see the penultimate night of "Some like It Hot”. Followed by a beautiful four-day weekend in New York with lots of walking, plenty of visiting galleries and museums, iceskating in Central Park and shopping. No sooner had we got off the plane on the 2nd of January than I hit the ground running. Staging a conference for a major client which took up all my time and meant that January, and its associated depressive blues, crept up on me unaware. Or rather, they manifested themselves in a series of domestic appliances that decided to give up the ghost and not join in with 2024. ...