claytoncast

As actors we spend a lot of our lives waiting. Waiting to hear, waiting to work, waiting for work and waiting for people to see our work. Much of our time seems to be spent with the never boiling watched kettle. How much easier it is to have time full of things to do. To leave the audition room and plunge back into the world of work rather than let the hours drift slowly by waiting for the no. If it ever comes. It’s not unknown to wait for quite a while and then to get a yes. I’ve just spent two or three weeks waiting for the results of meetings I had. Both turned into offers. Sadly, in the interim, my diary has changed and I can only take one of the jobs. It’s always great to be offered work, and its even nicer to do it. But one cannot wait around. Many years ago I waited nearly three weeks for the result of a series of interviews for a West End role. I was in my early twenties and it was the biggest job interview I had been for. By week three, the long hours of unemployment were ...

They say you first feel old when the policeman start looking younger. Believe me it's not just the policemen. There are many job titles which impose a sense of gravitas; CEO, Global director, Senior Manager, Consultant All of these titles for people who I would expect to be more experienced than me and older. Except, of course, these days they aren't. Last night my recurring character Roger Ffolkes made a return to Holby City. In Roger tradition, he basically came in to have a chat with Dom, played by the delightful and fabulous David Ames, but in order to get any conversational time with the young doctor, Roger nearly always has to undergo emergency major surgery. Last year I had an appendectomy or something similar. Last night I had a bowel resection and my heart stopped while I was on the operating table. That wasn't the greatest shock of the evening to me. In a scene I wasn't part of, and therefore let's be honest, hadn’t really taken much notice of in the ...

So 2019 got off to a great start."Ruffian on the Stair" came and went and proved a great success. Thanks to a fabulous team of people working on it, we were able to create something rather special. A piece of theatre that everyone working on it had a vested interest in. Brilliant design, fabulously atmospheric lighting, great sound, all created by a group of people who gave masses of time and love to the project. And of course three fantastic actors who, as one reviewer was right to point out, were "at the top of their game". I'm thrilled that, what was for me, a rather personal project became a special endeavour for everyone involved in it, and brought a lot of new people into the Hope Theatre to pack it out during the run. Having dinner after the show closed with the wonderful Adam Buchanan who played Wilson, I was asked "So has that given you a taste for doing more?" It is nearly seven years since I last directed. I was a little unsure of the an...

As I have grown older, my boredom threshold has grown infinitely shorter. I love the job where I just have to do a couple of days filming. The corporate market provides many opportunities where really big and demanding jobs can be over in four or five days and the one-off quality of the event, the one chance to get it right aspect, really appeals to my nature of being able to move on. So having spent the first three weeks of this year in a rehearsal room with the same three actors working on the same play marks a big behavioural departure for me. And I have loved it. This is the room where it happens. As an actor I can cope with the excitement of the preview and trying things out in front of an audience. I love the cards and presents of a press night. The excitement of showing something for the first time and, of course, the mix and mingle afterwards, but quite often by the Saturday at the end of that first week, I'm ready to get into my car and drive home and not return. Job d...

One of the rather magical benefits of going away in late November and early December is that when you come back home, Christmas seems to have started in earnest. We've been back from our week in Dubai for seven days now, and all week I have felt the pressure of Christmas. Streetlights, busy shops, and a diary that just doesn't have enough empty days in it before the 25th. The Jo Malone Advent calendar has yielded yet more goodies - individual bottles of cologne, scented candles, moisturisers and the like. Richards gin advent calendar has yielded, yes, gin, lots of varieties, but gin. As a freelancer you don't get invited to many Christmas parties. No office party, unless you give yourself a glass of wine and a bag of salted cashews, but on Friday evening, I went over to a drinks party hosted by the editor of The Stage at his new house in Bermondsey. It was relaxed, low-key, and absolutely delightful. Richard, having arrived back from Birmingham late in the evening, joi...

Readers of this blog, my column in The Stage, or either of my books will know that I once played a bear. It was in a version of Kipling's "The Jungle book" at the Arts Theatre in London way back in 1990. I doubled the roles of Kipling and Baloo the bear. Sadly I didn't get to put my tonsils around the "Bare Necessities" as the music was provided by Indo Jazz Fusion. I can only hope they've gone on to have a long and successful career. I haven't actually heard what they're up to. I do hope however that the costume designer for that particular show has never been allowed near a theatre since. Having done a considerable amount of movement work in the rehearsal period to establish the weight and lumbering gait of a bear, at my costume fitting I was presented with a lycra one-piece jumpsuit and a poncho made out of fisherman's netting onto which two tone brown ribbons had been hastily tacked. My response - "It doesn't exactly scream bea...

 Earlier this month I spent a very enjoyable five days filming on the first episode of a crime series of  for the BBC. I was taken by how the structure of a day's filming, is so like our working life as actors in general. Some days from the moment you arrive on set, you might be busy for the whole day, but  that is rare. You might have a scene off in the middle of the day which, if you're lucky, will necessitate returning to your trailer at location base and passing an hour or so catching up on emails or having a snooze. Being of a generation who remembers filming before we had smartphones, I remember how an essential part of one's location kit would include some cheap tacky paperback which you could immerse yourself in without any real commitment. Twice in my twenties, I asked my mother if she could teach me how to knit, as I saw lots of older actors sitting around in their trailers completing scarves and christening blankets and working through their Christmas list ...