I Wanna Tresspass

Coffin Anybody?

Great story from the BBC about a Ghanese coffin maker who makes sculptured coffins to represent the trade of the dead person, or whatever they wanted. So a dead cobbler, gets buried in a shoe, a snailseller, in a snail, a drunk in a bottle, a journalist in a pen and a gynocologist inside a giant womb which is both funny and also rather touching.

I think I would like one of those, but not of my trade. A Welsh Dragon methinks.

No Commitments

All my commitments to other people are done with now.
I have until the end of February to write my dissertation and the end of April to put on Hamlet.

Spring has arrived.

Last night was a great success.
Haley came to see me in a show for the first time ever on the Thursday, but I did not put in a great performance, decent but not great. The audience was low key. Afterwards we went to the source, Dave insisted on coming too, nice enough lad but I wanted to be alone with her. I never noticed what a pretty nose she has. A roman nose, not like our ugly splayed nordic noses. Fell asleep on her shoulder.

As we walked back into town she started talking about ulterior motives, she believes everyone has them. How no one is what they seem, thats why she likes me so much, because I am genuine to her. Of course, I'm not, how can I be when I have such strong feelings for her. But I don't intend to act on them. There is no forseeable point in the future when I could act on them. I am quite happy as her friend and if that is all that our relationship ever is, I shall be happy simply to have known her, I can exist without her love. So I have no ulterior motive. Nevertheless, I feel guilt as she talks. I wish I had put in a better performance for her.

On the Friday, I stayed in bed all day so as not to go out and spend money. Ended up rushing out of the house at seven O clock. Ran to Tesco's for cheap food then jumped in a cab, just made it to Tim and Steve's show. Stood there nibbling at the grapes I'd bought. The show was fantastic, but not surprising. I've never known anyone more aware of their own physicality than Tim. He has the physique of a dancer and can create a raw dangerous energy, everything he does on stage is as though he has lost his mind, acting like a raw animal, but at the same time this is a complete performance. A complete act. I have seen it numerous times such as in Soul Traders. Tim is so incredibly talented, but somehow I always know what he is going to throw at us. That incredible stare. This is a pity, it is not a flaw in his performance but simply that I know him too well, have seen him perform too many times, not to know which of his tricks he will pull out. He is a fantastic performer, in order for him to become a great performer however, he will need a few more tricks, a few more surprises.

Steve on the other hand constantly surprises me. He couldn't lose it as well as Tim. Tim rushed the audience because he was angry, caged, a beast. Steve rushed the audience because it was the bit in the piece where he rushed the audience. People constantly cast Steve as a hard man, despite his small stature. He does it very competently. This past year he has improved a thousandfold as a performer and I see something in his eyes now that stands out but not as a hard man but as a vulnerable and sad lead. He explored it slightly in The Penal Colony, and I think that is where he may find his forte, which is why I count it fortuitous that he is now playing Horatio in Hamlet. He may not believe in his ability to play such a character as evinced in the rehearsals we have had so far, but I think he could be brilliant.

I was expecting an interval between Tim's and Ruth's show, but people started running up immediately without waiting for Front of House. Not to put too fine a point on it, the stewards need to get their act together, I know they are volunteers and Wee Jen does a good job of Box Office, but I keep finding stands left out around college during the day that they have simply forgotten about. Little Tom I can forgive, bless him, but certain people need to start taking the initiative.

Anyway, once Front of House got the audience back downstairs and into some sort of order we had a five minute breather, desperately needed for Jenny C who had just exhausted herself in the previous piece and had barely enough time to change costume and make up. We all just stood there behind the flats running our monologues at each other, there was no time for preparation. Just go out and do it. It was in this ridiculous time, that the character finally appeared. He had been there, all the time, all the things I had been trying to create finally came together with the adrenalin rush. My characters never really appear until the first night, this one was late, but he did appear. It is the audience that makes them. Rehersals are simply to learn the lines and the movements. It is the audience that allow me to create the character

Because I'd had no preparation, my throat was dry, I walked out, said my first line and could barely hear myself croaking. I cleared my throat hoping that I wouldn't need water, and carried on. And it worked, from having a very good but rather dry, one dimensional character which was mostly myself, I became someone else. I knew what he had eaten for breakfast, how he had spent his day at work. Not from thinking about it, but because that was who he was. I inhabited the character more completely than any other I have portrayed.

And I worked the audience. Renee had warmed them up. I took them further, I could make them laugh by how I said a line. I knew where I wanted them to laugh and I made them laugh. I knew where I wanted quiet and so I brought them down. Jenny C, a lot less nervous than the Thursday, had them rolling in the aisles. Aron, in a completely unfunny role, got a round of applause and then Jenny E rounded it off nicely, another unfunny role, but she pulled out a few laughs nonetheless.

I imagine after Steve and Tim's, people were thinking, what could top that? I don't believe in comparing shows. They are either good or bad. What we did, combined, is give the audience an incredible night out, one which they won't forget in a hurry.

After the get outs, we headed to the guild for the party. I needed to dance so went upstairs quite early, but the DJ was playing crap, stuff I hated anyway. I left without saying goodbye. In a general bad mood for no reason.

Katie's leaving do tonight. I hope Nile sticks by her while she's away. If anyone can make an honest man of him, she can.

Bah, humbug.

Family

Woken at midday by Fran with a phone call from Mum. She's taken to ringing the house now that I can't avoid it whereas I usually just ignore the mobile.
Katie has won a music scholarship to school. Which is fantastic for her, be a huge boost to her confidence.
Chris has won the first round of his big competitition. He'll win the whole thing easily.
He has also been selected to play in a masterclass with Derek Han, I think broadcast on Classic FM, as part of some event they are having in Olympia. Mum has bought tickets for her and Katie, I put in for the competition to win a couple so we'll see.
Grumpy as ever on the phone. I hate the things.

London

The city of London.

While I was working there last summer I had some fantastic experiences.

I saw Dame Diana Rigg on stage, but missed Dame Judi Dench, also Aaron Eckhart and Julia Stiles from Hollywood in Oleanna. Eckhart was brilliant, Stiles a bit stilted but I didn't like the play.

The best play I saw was Democracy, a brilliant piece of work.

I visited the Tate Modern to see the Hopper exhibition.

Seeing Nighthawks up close is an undescribable experience, the paint seems to envelop you, tens of people were pushing round trying to get close. I stood at the front and stared for twenty minutes maybe, oblivious, sucked in by this neverending scene.

Other pieces I remember were Picasso's Dove, a charcoal work that captured me far more than any of his more famous or experimental works, and Studio Bankside by Derek Jarman. Watched it through twice and was reduced to tears. It is of a time apart from me, from us, of someone else's friends, someone else's happiness and remembrances in a place no longer existing, a time I never knew. Leaving, I mourned for its passing.
I have my own friends, happiness and remembrances in a time and place of my own. Though I don't feel it. I am an odd person, I do not have friends in the conventional sense, I feel like I exist within a gathering of other people. I have respect and love and I do not know why I have this, I have done nothing to deserve it.

These are the people I am with, in later times it will be different people. Every single one of them has a place in my heart and always will do, but I tend to drift.

I have never belonged, not to this group nor to any other group.
I am simply there. Let me illustrate.
While at Bradford, there were cliques, which did not mingle, except I was in most of them. There were lots of Malaysians in the halls, somehow I found myself invited whenever they went to play basketball or football. I would be the only non-malaysian there. I was friends with them but not great friends, except with Simon. I just happened to be there when these people were there. The same with the goths, the hippies, the Norweigians, the operatics, the Southporters, Bob's band, the theatrics.

I'm 23 and I have seen a lot. I know famous and non famous people. I have done incredible things such as ripping up a tree by the roots with my bare hands, climbing a cliff one handed, or walking from Bradford to Halifax on a five hour suicidal night trek, I have seen incredible sights such as the herd of cows wandering across Vatersay Bay under a mauve sunset, the sea stacks of St Kilda, the dawn mist over the broads and the great valley of the Afan. I have insulted the Bishop of Knaresborough and Dame Vera Lynn. My cousin captained Wales u21, My brother MD's several West End musicals. One of my ancestors was Mayor of Washington D.C

To get back to my point though, none of it matters, I am not a memorable person. I cannot regale friends with tales of adventure, derring do or incredible sights. I am not a storyteller, neither am I a comic, I can barely hold my own in social niceties. If I am in a good and happy mood then I can just about have a general conversation. I honestly wonder why people put up with boring old me.

But I am a writer, I can commit here, what I cannot express in life, I am, if nothing else, a complete observer, and some day in the future, when this current band of people have dispersed around the globe, in life, inevitably in death, I shall remember this gallant little group, that I watched for three years and I shall chronicle, if need be, these people, my friends, in a time and place that was ours, even for so short a time. In the future, people may read and wish perhaps that they had known these people, cared about them like I cared about them. They were all worth knowing, and all worth caring about. Some of them may go on to greatness, most won't. They'll have families and other friends in the future, they will produce art, most of it unremembered, they will die, like all people, some, before their time.

But most of all, they will have been my friend, will have accepted me, for at least some part of their life, and I am privileged, humbled and honoured to know them at this time. To have seen them mature, grow, learn, begin to become whole. Whatever the future holds, right now, and to the end of my life, these people will matter to me.

As much as this journal is about myself, it is about the people I know as well, the people who pass through my life, or perhaps more accurately the lives of people of which I pass through.

If you are reading this, mourn for our passing, as all things must pass, and then be with those you love, your friends, for things change faster than you know. Do not regret this, it is as things are.

Joyce Grenfell

Joyce Grenfell seemed like an absolutely lovely person. I wish I could have met her.

Damn

Walked home, almost in tears.

Don't know what I'm gonna do.
Oskar left for Finland today. Lucy's gone to Crete, Katie is off to Austria.

And then Haley was in the Wheel.

I've only ever been in love with two women in my life. Natalie and Haley.

Being rejected by Natalie essentially was the last straw in my nervous breakdown.

What I feel for Haley makes the feelings I had for Nat seem like a passing fancy.
And she is still the only woman I know that I cannot have. Natalie simply rejected me.
Haley is engaged to someone she loves vey much. I can't even tell her how I feel because then I'd just be messing up her life as well as our friendship.

She is the only woman I have ever met who complements me as a person, who completes me, who inspires me and makes me think. In three years she has been the only woman I have cared about, there have been others, girls I've fancied, gone out with, looked after.
I went out with Lucy for three weeks, my first proper girlfriend.
When we broke up it didn't matter. Lucy wasn't Haley and she was never going to make me forget about Haley. No woman is going to, ever. Is there any point even bothering?

I don't see her all that often, it's easier in some ways. She's not on my mind then. I can at least pretend that other women exist and are worthy of attention.

Tonight I was out with Ed, Katie, Chris, Irish Ray, Nile, Sabs and Lindsay. Dave, Sian, Adam, Crazy Dave, Annette, Faz, Richie Rich, and Carl were also there.
And then I saw Haley and no one else existed.

We are very very good friends, she finds it hard to get on with most other people.
But she thinks that she bores me.
When actually there is no one in this world that I care about more.

Afterwards, when she left, the world no longer mattered.
All those friends and no Haley. It wasn't worth being there after that.

I hung around for a short while
Mostly bangning my head into a wall or sitting in the corner.

Annette, bless her heart, came over. I don't know her all that well and lied, said I was tired. But it was nice.

Of all people Nile came and asked what was wrong.
I said woman trouble and he gave me a hug.
Then Irish Ray came to me and said that he admired me and wished that he could be more like me. I was stunned. The guy is half a foot taller than me, with looks I would die for, a beautiful girl who hangs on his every word and he wishes he could be more like me.

I hugged both of them, I love them all to bits but all Ray sees is my self confidence. To my friends I am always there dancing away without a care in the world.

They don't know why I dance.

I saw Debbie in the Warwick as I walked home. She didn't see me, I didn't stop. Couldn't bear to talk.

I should have got Oskar's email address, I really am going to miss those crazy finger dances we had.

I asked that first year to come see me in Ruth's play. She didn't recognise me since I have shaved since we last met, I like her, but tonight again I realised she isn't who I want her to be, isn't who I need, should I even bother making an attempt?

I could find a nice girl, settle down, do all the normal stuff, but I know that whatever I felt for them if Haley ever became single, I'd leave the nice girl like a shot for Haley.

What I should do is just stop all contact, which I had to do with Nat for my own sanity, but going through life knowing I would never speak to her again would be unbearable. We'll be friends and I'll continue being speechless around her because I know that at some point she has to leave and leave me on my own with my heart as desolate as if someone had exploded an atomic bomb inside it.

Its a price worth paying to be her friend.

Maybe one day I will tell her how I feel, and maybe just maybe she'll feel the same and leave Mark for me. Of course she probably wouldn't and I could never ask her to, Mark's a nice lad and if he feels even a fraction of what I feel for that girl, well, I wouldn't wish to put anyone through that.

Lose-lose situation really.

She will always be my muse however, whether or not she knows it.

Spoke to Renee today, for the first time in ages, she told me how she is frightened now of going home, the gangs in Jamaica are running riot, places where she played as a kid are no go areas because people just get shot. She is frightened for her son Jamali. She also told me how only the very rich have decent housing so whenever a hurricane or floods hit, houses are torn apart, her friends lost their roofs and all their possessions in the last Hurricane to hit (Ivan?)

She has a permanent stay in Britain if she wishes and she can make a career here, she is a very talened actress, but as an expat Welshman, I know how much it hurts to be away from your own country.

In five months it will be over.
my formal education.
I have spent 20 years, a third of my entire life (If I am to die at sixty like all my male ancestors and relations) getting the damn thing.

These three years, depressions over Haley excepted, have been the happiest of my life.

People are already leaving, people I've only just got to know. People I care about.
Aron, Nile, Ray, Lizzie will all be back off to ireland, following Gerard and Jessie. Renee to Jamaica. Stevo and Tim to Florida. Mark to Camp America. Pam, all over the world as an Air Hostess. People to Scotland, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Hull, abroad.
Some will stay in Carlisle.

And I back to that dungheap of a city of Leeds

People I might never see again.

I will never forget this city, the people I met here, whether locals or students. It has been home from home.
Even if I were to stay, it wouldn't be the same, time moves on, lives move on.

If I am to die, let it be at the end of this degree, because from there on out, it will be all downhill.

I have forty years, more if I am lucky.

I'd better bloody well do something important.

Look at me all maudlin now, just depressed, just lonely, but I'll get over it.

It is now half past four in the morning. I have rehearsals in eleven and a half hours and a show in fifteen and a half hours.
The show requires me to be maudlin, depressed and lonely so I'll get over it in a couple of days time.

Goodnight.

Performance

Tonight I gave a bad performance, that's two in a row.
In Obsession, I felt like I was barely there, almost not inside of myself, working on autopilot.

Tonight in Debbie's show, I simply did not have a full grasp of the lines, I only messed up after attention was off me, but I still messed up.

I should not be too hard on myself.
When I learn lines I learn them so that the each line only comes to me as I finish the last one.

This is dangerous, several times I have come to the end of a line and there is nothing but a big yawning abyss where the next line should be.

In Obsession an abyss opened up even where lines did not exist.

When it works it means that I am never just on autopilot. It actively improves my acting and stage presence, it brings a reality I could not otherwise produce.
When it doesn't work, I simply shouldn't be on stage.

But it's over, it's done with.

Next up is Moaning Logs, Ruth's show.
I know it, whats more, though I say it myself, I am very good at it.

It's a show which gives me free range which is always my forte, as with Epsom Downs, The Glorious Mechanicals, and Company, in my bit the audience will be mine and mine alone and I will give them a show.

If given the opportunity I can do anything with an audience.
That is what I enjoy about Theatre so much. Making an audience feel whatever you want them to feel.
Making them feel like you feel.
Making them think.

Humans react differently in groups than they do alone. An audience is primal, directionless, formless.

Understand that and you can do anything.

Show

Before a show I like to sit in the theatre, on stage or in the auditorium
on my own
in the dark
before the lights go up and the magic begins.

I study the stage, each object, each prop
in a few hours the actors will be on stage,
the technicians making the final adjustments
the audience finding their seats.

Now it is calm
and there is just me
and the playwright

Invisible

Waiting for life.

The air in a theatre has a peculiar quality
Channelled lights on empty spaces
Empty chairs waiting for an occupant.

An enclosed darkness.
Waiting for breath, for speech
for drama.

Death, life and taxes, all on a 10 by 8
changeable people, changeable stories
but right now
me
here
alone

in an empty room.

Florestan And Eusebius

I want to not care.
I want to isolate myself from everyone,
just myself with my books and my music and my words.

I want to care.
I want to take everyone in my arms and tell them that it is alright
That everything will be fine
That I can make things easier.

The more I understand, the less I know.
The more I understand the less real the world is
the less things exist.

I see every perspective, can see every angle, understand the pro's and con's of every situation
and I do what is right at the time.
Except it never is.

I want to know the ocean.

Free choice does not exist, because time has already occured.
Free choice exists because time is occuring.

No person is evil, they simply believe in their own good.

For me, good does not exist, so I must invent it.

I am Florestan and Eusebius.
Equal and opposite.
Neither right, neither wrong.

Neither in command.
Always quarreling.

At times I know nothing at all, except that I do not know even myself.

Words mean nothing at all, nor actions.
We only percieve what we wish to percieve.
And wishes cannot be altered.
Florestan percieves Eusebius and Eusebius percieves Florestan.

With hatred, contempt and pity.
Yet Eusebius aids Florestan and Florestan aids Eusebius,
Without one or other, there would be no whole.

Thus is humanity.

Our Own Little Apocalyptic Scenario

We had a little apocalypse in Carlisle a couple of weeks ago. That there is the council building under about five feet of water. (Ta BBC) It might not sound all that bad but consider that the council building is about seven to nine feet above the normal level of the River Eden. Also consider that the flood actually happened in the space of about two hours, and that Eden has quite a large flood plain for such a small river. The water level rose approximately fourteen feet in about two hours.

The only way to traverse between the North and the South of the city was by boat or helicopter.

Casualties noted: Two Elderly Women
One Elderly Man
One Cow (Last seen floating down a main road)
One Carp (Thought to have taken a wrong turn in the Irish Sea)

Two goldfish, long thought lost, were recovered swimming in the football pitch and have since been adopted as mascots.

I went and rescued Sabs who was trapped with her worst nightmare. She went off to Lindsey's and I put the nightmare up for the night. Watched helicopters.

Night Came.

No power for forty eight hours.

Candles, games, booze, radio, guitars, chat.
Students wandering in the dark between those houses that had survived, pooling food, supply trips to darkened shops. Tim on a mission. (Tim likes missions).
The impromptu redneck preachers.
Hotel California.

Someone asked me if I was Jewish.
I said my head was cold.
Because it was.

Dinner Party

I like to imagine having a fantasy dinner party with people I admire and respect.
This would be my perfect dinner party:

Ernest Shackleton
(Polar Explorer)
A great leader and inspiration, someone who refused to give up despite impossible odds. Stubborn as hell.

Lawrence Durrell
(Author and Poet)
The greatest writer I've ever read, had a greater perspective on life than a thousand other men combined.

James Lloyd Carr
(Author, Teacher, Publisher and Englishman)
The world his books encompassed is the most complete literary accomplishment ever, someone who saw things for what they were.

Donald Pleasance
(Actor)
One of the finest actors England has ever produced, for all Steve McQueen's antics in The Great Escape, it is Pleasance's performance, along with James Garner's able support that leaves you heartbroken and gives the film its poignancy.

Bette Davis
(Actress)
Watching her perform is like watching the sun rising. As beautiful and unstoppable, it makes us question life itself and worship it should we never see it again. The greatest actress ever to grace the world. Period.

Olivier Messiaen
(Composer)
While interned in a prison camp during WW2 wrote the Quartet For The End Of Time. Brought hope in a time of darkness.

Bruce Chatwin
(Writer, Traveller)
A man who needed to travel, who made the journey and showed the way.

RS Thomas
(Vicar and Poet)
Arguably greater than Dylan Thomas, the complete collection of his poems might as well be called The Decline And Fall Of Wales, charted the country more completely than anyone before or since.

Caractacus
(Warrior)
English by birth, Welsh by adoption, he waged a guerilla war against the Romans for over a decade before being betrayed by an English tribe he sought assistance from. Even in custody in front of the Emperor Claudius he outsmarted him and was given the freedom of the city of Rome rather than the execution that awaited most enemies of the Empire.

G.K. Chesterton
(Writer, Christian)
The funniest and yet most poingant of all English writers, he could twist an unambiguous gut wrenching laugh into a wistful and insightful remark on any part of the human condition, and back again within three lines. A giant of a man in every sense.

Derek Jarman
(Artist, Gardener, Writer, Campaigner)
I saw his one of his early films at Tate Modern and it made me cry. A crying out for rememberance and innocence. An artist in and above all things.

Fynn and Anna
(Lost Souls)
Fynn found Anna wandering the streets of London, she had run away from home. Fynn and his family adopted her and they had lots of adventures. Anna died falling out of a tree onto spiked iron railings, years later Fynn wrote a book about his extraordinary little girl who saw and understood more than any adult.

Jim Jarmusch
(Director)
Understands that the journey is more important than the destination and therefore produces greater art than any other film director.

Sir Henry Morton Stanley
(Welshman, Stowaway, Soldier, Journalist, Explorer, MP, Knight)
Packed more into his life than virtually anyone else in history. Stowed away to America from work house. Fought on both sides of the American Civil War. Journalist for the New York Post. Made trouble, sent to Africa. Managed to find Dr Livingstone in the middle of the largest continent, almost completely uncharted at the time, and then charted most of it, discovered the source of the Congo and covered more African ground than just about anyone else in history. Returned home and got elected. Knighted. Earned bragging rights.

Lieutenant John Chard V.C and Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead V.C
(Soldiers)
With a complement of 139 men, many of whom were recovering at the missionary hospital, held off an army of 4000 Zulu in the battle of Rorke's Drift, the battle lasted for two days and included fierce hand to hand fighting as the Zulu's attacked on all sides. When the Zulu's finally retreated and casualties counted, the Zulu's had lost some 300 men, with a further 300 dying from their wounds on the long march home. The Welsh regiment, incredibly, counted only 17 casualties.

Edward Hopper
(Painter)
Created works of intense beauty, they contain scenes of loneliness yet make one yearn to be alone, simple representations of simple moments yet from within them Hopper reaches out to entwine himself in our own souls. Understood what it is that makes us human and that makes the Earth part of us, and managed to paint the unpaintable.

My Sleeping Bag

I love my sleeping bag. It is warm and snug and suits me perfectly. I have had it a long time, in fact it is the only sleeping bag I have ever had. I hope I never need a new one. It is bright red which would be a bad thing if I ever had to go to sleep while camouflaged in the middle of a green field with unspeakable things hunting me, but fortunately this has never yet happened.

Feeling Down?

Statement

My social ineptitude is staggering.