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Acting for you I left drama school without an agent. It didn't bother me too much at the time. I had an eight month contract for the Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester in my hand, and I thought I had it made. I was pretty sure that once I got on the stage  I would be spotted by lots of people who couldn’t resist the temptation to work with me and jobs would be forthcoming.  As young actors go, I don’t think I was or am alone in that assumption. Last Monday we had a fantastically successful event at The Actors Centre in Covent Garden. entitled “Moving On Up”. It was aimed at this year’s drama graduates from all the major drama schools. The building was packed to the seams, and it was great to see so much potential gathered in one place. Like me,  so many years ago, these young people are all focused on getting an agent. Indeed, for many of them, that will be their main focus, rather than actually getting a job. One of the facilities we provided last Monday we...

Tomorrow night, Monday, 20 January, the doors of The Actors Centre in Covent Garden will swing open to welcome a large number of this years drama school leavers. We're staging a new event entitled "Moving On Up", designed to help drama school graduates prepare for the moment they step out of the womb of training and prepare to face the world of work. In the space of two hours  the young would-be actors will get to meet prospective employers, agents, casting directors, recent graduates, accountants, and staff at the actors Centre, all of whom could help to play a vital role in the development of their careers. What they will also meet is each other. Or as it might be referred to - the competition. At this moment in time all of these graduates are aware of the rest of their peer group at their own drama school. They've not yet really come into contact with the final years of up to 12 or 14 other drama schools who will be releasing their graduates into the job marke...

As one gets older, it's only too easy to bemoan change. My mother recently announced that the New Year hasn't been the same since the war. Quite what the threat of Nazi invasion brought to December 31st that is now missing I'm not sure, but she is adamant. She's also adamant that telephones aren't what they were. Indeed they aren't. They're now mobile and she is the proud owner of a mobile phone which she loves, but...it's not the same. For this reason alone, and so that my partner can't throw that below the belt threat of "You're just like your mother"at me, I try to embrace change.   Though perhaps next time he wants to go down that road i might remind him of the words of the wise Oscar Wilde. "All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his." I'm not sure that applies to gay men. I'll have to ask! This year Richard and I are thinking of making the biggest change o...

It is never easy sitting down to write this, the last blog of the year.  I suppose, traditionally, it should contain a review of what has gone on in the past 12 months, and indeed as preparation, I've just spent half an hour flicking back  through the blog entries I've made during that time. Action packed, rewarding, and busy. Four holidays, three television series, two personal goals,  not to mention of course the partridge that has taken up residence in the newly planted pear tree in our back garden!  If you want to see just exactly what those things were, then you too will have to flip back through the entries of 2013. I would hope that it's a good read. It's not just intended to be a diary,  but a place where I can share my somewhat biased opinions, and thoughts. Something I intend to continue doing through 2014. Now that sounds like a New Year's resolution, and as a rule I just don't make them because I just break them. But perhaps there ar...

I think weddings have been a little bit of a theme this year. Prior to 2013, I  hadn't been to a wedding for absolutely ages.  Possibly the last one I went to was that of Richard's sister Annabel, a winter themed event in a Cambridgeshire hotel in mid-February some  eight to ten years ago. Obviously all my contemporaries got married many years ago, and now I seem to be turning up at the wedding of some of their children. Not brilliant for the self-image.  This year I've been to three, or four if you count the highly successful one that we filmed for "Him and Her" series 4 which has just finished its run on BBC 3.Great to watch, but hard work to make. In fact after the five weeks filming of those nuptials I've vowed that if I ever had to attend a wedding again it would be too soon. Of course when I said that I hadn't figured about the possibility of attending a wedding in Thailand, which was what we have just spent the last ten days doing. Not ...

Straight or Bent ? - The Real Me In the sort of coincidence that can sometimes render one slightly frustrated, most of the television work that I've done this year, is now being shown on television simultaneously. Hence if you’re particularly devoted to a little touch of Clayton in your night,  you have been able to catch me early evening on Thursday in the Channel 4 soap “Hollyoaks” or later on BBC 3 in the remarkably good “HIm and Her”, the channel's highest rating sitcom. Graham watches Paul sign the register at the wedding from Hell - Him and Her There may be some avid devotees, having watched both, who think this has proved an admirable opportunity for me to show my range. In  “Him and Her” I play Graham, a sensitive and softly spoken counsellor who's been having an affair with Paul, the aggressive and slightly simple boyfriend of Laura. Through Paul’s relationship with Graham we manage to see a new side of him. In Uniform - Hollyoaks In my ...

Where you bleeding from?  I think as one gets older one should always try and have new experiences. New sensations and new adventures to help invigorate one and keep one alive and the adrenaline pumping. Having said this, last Sunday morning I had a new experience I could happily have done without. At the age of 56 years of age I had my first nosebleed. It’s a long time since I’ve seen so much of my own blood, and fresh and glistening on the bathroom floor it looked very very red. A second nosebleed on the Monday, plus an overnight emission (Careful!), that did our 300 thread count Egyptian cotton frette pillows absolutely no good at all, meant that it was time to pop along to the GP. Easier said than done. I don't know whether it’s the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who that has taken me back in time, but I have happy memories of walking up to the doctor's surgery with my mother at surgery time and sitting in the waiting room, to be seen in order of arrival. An or...