Happy new year

Christmas is finally done with and the sodding easter eggs have already started loading up the shelves in Tesco. We're all freezing our asses off outdoors, and my Australian housemates have the heating jammed up to absurd levels 24 hours a day in my flat so I feel like I live in a sauna and I actively dread the arrival of the gas and electricity bills. And soon enough now I am going on tour with two shows in rep for a few months.

But in the meantime I am assistant directing my friend Mel Cook. I don't do this very often - in fact only for Mel - but it's a valuable insight into my job. You learn how valuable it is to have actors that offer things all the time. You see how visible it is when the actors think they can just busk it. You know who does the homework and who doesn't. And you love actors who work hard and play hard. It all feeds back in.

Mel is directing a play at the well-loved Finborough Theatre. The play was written the year before I was born. It deals with a middle english family imploding as a result of one man's inability to move his life forward. It treats with an England that is financially falling to pieces, and the apathy of the average englishman in the face of inevitable ruin. This is the right time to get it put on, and The Finborough the right place. The company is very diverse and joyful, and I am curently watching them work and chuckling to myself over the top of my laptop.