Come on Al. What's the point of having a blog if you don't update it? Clearly because my life is so full and spangly that I have no need to constantly let my energy get sucked into a horrible computer keyboard. Clearly.
I'm in Darlings of Chelsea. It is a shop selling leather sofas on Fulham high Street. Nobody ever comes in, so I had a Laura Lee and this young Oxbridge director called Titus come in and we rehearsed a reading that I've got for the Hampstead theatre on Monday. It felt quite subversive and bohemian to be secretly rehearsing drama downstairs in a sofa showroom. The play is pretty good, but I'd be a fool if I imagined that they would say - "hey let's produce it! And keep the cast the same!" So I guess I'm doing it for the love again. One day someone will pay me for doing my job as opposed to having to do things like work in a sofa warehouse and secretly act instead of selling sofas, or drive stupid ad-bikes and secretly learn speeches on park benches all afternoon. If my parents were still alive they would be saying - "When are you going to get a proper job and give up on this pipe dream you're chasing?" so I guess in some senses it's a relief they aren't... Yeah I miss them and could do with the unconditional love since I get precious little of that from anyone else, but in the end I would only end up getting more pissed off by having to explain repeatedly that I do feel as if I am building SOMETHING and I know that I am getting better and better all the time just through sheer weight of experience and learning from people around me.
The play I'm reading is about someone who loses her dad in a car crash, and has never had a good relationship with him. Puts me in mind of the fact that dad and I never really cleared up our issues before he died. Not that there was anything serious about them beyond the fact that I was a dirty teenager with a stated ambition to piss his career up the wall and be an actor. Man Harrow School fees are something like 20 thousand a term. I'll probably never earn enough to refund the school fees in my entire professional life at the rate I'm going.
Oddly Harrow is in the news right now - Mr. Braham's daughter got stabbed to death by Alan Jaggs' son. Freaky as I remember them both. Jaggs' son was just a cute little kid. Braham's daughter was older but still not old enough to be in my radar as a person. Just a kid. So these two kids I knew of and had exchanged brief words with - one of them is already dead. And the little lad was found naked, screaming and repeatedly stabbing himself. And is now in a coma. Harrow must be going nuts trying to keep the press out of it. The place is such an island. In atmosphere it reminds me of Stratford Upon Avon when all the shows have been running for some months and everyone is falling in and out of love and hate because they're so disgustingly bored with the fact that they live in a tiny little village full of ducks and Americans. It's a melting pot for craziness. I was totally off my rocker for the whole five years that I was there - it inspired me to be vastly prolific and creative, and also totally other-worldly. I noticed that it's stated clain is that "we make gentlemen rather than scholars." So they actually actively try to make people who think they are terribly important but know fuck all. Great. I imagine both of the teachers will end up leaving. Can you imagine the tension in the staff room? Braham was art and Jaggs was Design Technology. So Design Technology killed art. God it doesn't bear thinking about.
Shame I don't have the crazy Tarot widget or I'd drop in a tarot of the day. I shall have to try again and start updating this more than once a year.
It's useful to learn about myself that I just can't do something regularly. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
;)
ReplyDelete