claytoncast

I find the anticipation before Christmas almost unbearable. I have done since I was a small child. Just where are those presents hidden? I know my partner came home the other night with a large carrier bag which I saw him walking up the drive with, but which didn't seem to materialise when he walked into the lounge. It must be hidden somewhere in the flat. Now mercifully I'm past the age when I would root through cupboards, drawers and wardrobes in search of it. As a child, any hint or clue that might lead me to find a parcel hidden somewhere, and on some occasions, even to unwrap something were too hard to resist. Now I suffer in silence. I know Santa's sack will be bulging on Christmas morning and I will have total joy in the surprises. This year I haven't even given anyone a Christmas list so I've no idea what I will be getting. Partly in order to defray this horrendous sense of anticipation, I like to do a little thinking back over the year as to just what p

I have a work motto which many people know about. “Do one thing each day that may lead to work and then get on with living your life”. Good advice given to me by a tutor at drama school and it has stood me in good stead. I have one other thing I do every day. 10pm each evening. The news begins its roll call of calamity but only one thing concerns me. Time to head into our office and pick up the phone to Mum. She’s about to be 95, lives in a care home in Rotherham and her grip on reality can change from day to day. At it’s worst she may have resisted the staff’s efforts to get her up and spent the day in bed. These are her dark days. Days when she has had enough of the world. “I just want to go to sleep” she says. She means die. Part of the roleplay work I have done has been concerned with end of life conversations and saying the D word is incredibly important. I’ve broached it with her. “When you say you just want to go to sleep, do you mean you want to die? “Yes” she re

So on Wednesday evening this week, it might be thought I became a traitor, As Chairman of the Actors Centre, why on earth was I to be found delivering a workshop for the Actors Guild, our supposed rival. I had a great evening, was well looked after, had a very keen and attentive group and hopefully by the end of the evening, seven people were more clued up on skills to enhance their corporate roleplay than they had been before. So why on earth wasn’t I on home turf delivering this in the Actors Centre? Truth of the matter is I have done so and it's always gone down well. However, in a world where one of the choices actors do have is who they pursue their skill refreshing with, I wanted to reach as many people as possible. The Actors Centre has a pre-set curriculum with workshops advertised up to 3 months in advance and this was one of the very reasons that caused a group of actors to break away and form The Actors Guild. They wanted more control over the workshops

At some point in July I decided that my summer would be one in front of the word processor creating articles and blog posts and working on my book. How wrong I was. Within a week of settling into that frame of mind, my agent had sent me for three interviews and in a casting coup unprecedented in my thirty eight year career, I got all three jobs. As a result the summer has been much busier than intended and has merged seamlessly into that back to school feel always associated with early September. Now spending a week in my home town of Rotherham creating a children's gala for the amazing charity Grimm and Co of which I am a patron, work is booked in for my return to London next week and ongoing. I know how lucky I am. Quite often in the past, my younger self would have not felt so relaxed about turning off from the prospect of work for the summer. Yet it might often have been the most beneficial thing I could have done. August is remarkably quiet. It's like a very long 198

I remember how much easier it is to cope with the pains of unemployment during the summer months. A hot day could mean a trip to the park, or simply lying out on the communal patch of grass behind the flat in which I used to live which stood in for a garden. The approach of August is probably one of the times of the year when I worry least about the prospect of having no work. If the sun is streaming through the window, and the humidity is making me just a little bit moist, then the idea of a lazy chair and a good book is probably all the fulfilment I need.  Which means  that it is the most difficult time to be a working actor. To self motivate, to do one thing every day that might need to work, but it's also the time of year when doing one thing every morning, can leave you a day free to enjoy the benefits of the climate and give you the inner peace you have done something that might move things onwards on the work front. Several young actors have said to be during th

Having suddenly noticed that I haven't blogged since the end of May, I cast my mind back to recall what I've been doing for the last month or so, and I'm instantly reminded of Snow White's melodic trill "Busy Doing Nothing".  Actually it might seem like nothing, but in reality  there's been a hell of a lot going on. Of course I'm not even going to touch on the matters that have been in the public eye. Incensed, jubilant, or plain tired, whatever you are, you don't need to hear more about the Westminster Game of Thrones from me.  A trip to New York at the end of May for four days to deliver one 90 minute seminar with my favourite corporate acting associate  Marianne O'Connor was a joy, even if our return was slightly marred by a cancelled flight at 12:15 AM   resulting in a very short nights sleep,  an incredibly expensive flight back for the  two of us  the next day, and a Twitter battle to achieve compensation. A pleasant Devon we