Se7en

I thought I’d be the star pupil this week. I knew, because she’d told us, that we would be having dance class on our dance teacher’s birthday. So I organised getting a card and getting everyone to secretly sign it before the class began and prepare for a big presentation. Then some guy walks through the door and says that Lynne’s off, because it’s her birthday, and he’ll be taking the class instead. Fail. I gave him the card and he sent it to her, so she still got it but the impact of the gesture was desperately diminished.

We finished learning the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) in Voice this week. It’s fun to be able to write normal English words in a way that often looks nothing like normal writing. It’s helping me become more aware of how we actually form words out of distinct sounds, and this should prove very helpful when we come to work on accents.

Our Mike Leigh project is building in complexity. This week we were given more tasks but this time they involved meeting, or working with, other characters. It was strange and exciting to walk into a pub, as my character, and meet one of my classmates, as their character, and have a genuine interaction as characters, not as a performance but purely as an experience. It’s also very interesting, and often amusing, to discover what new personalities my classmates have decided to create for themselves.

Tiredness is continuing to rear its dreary head from time to time. It tends to be when I stop and sit down, particularly in the evening, after a meal. Drowsiness just steals over me… It happened this week in Bible study to the extent that I would lower my head to look at the passage, my eyes would fall shut, and I would almost drop off! When I’m too tired to study God’s Word that’s when I really know it’s becoming a problem. That’s when it’s even more necessary to be studying the Word. And getting more sleep!

This week, for the first time, I went away for the weekend. I visited Auntie Judy in her home in Haywards Heath. We went for a refreshing walk around the beautiful Wakehurst Place. They’d just had the ‘turning on of the lights’ ceremony for the big Christmas tree the night before.


On Sunday morning we went to Judith’s church, a lovely old building very happily situated, and it was a baptism of a family of three small girls, which was really lovely. It was so great to get out of the city and spend some time in a totally different setting and I’m glad I managed to make at least one social visit this term.

That afternoon I got back to London and went to All Souls to be part of a recording of the New Year’s Day Service for BBC Radio 4. It was rather enjoyable to join a church-ful of people pretending it was the first of January! We sang some great hymns with epic arrangements by All Souls’ Director of Music Noel Tredinnick. It will be broadcast at 8.10am on New Year’s Day and, if I can wake up in time, listening to it would be a wonderful way to start 2012.

The Big Six

Starting to get some feedback on how I’m doing. Have done small assessments for Voice and Movement now, and I was emailed my Movement feedback which was quite positive. Had a couple of one-on-one feedback sessions; one for Dance, again mostly positive – except apparently I need to smile more and not look so serious when I’m concentrating – and one general one with Amanda, the Course Leader, about how the course is going – generally good but I’m too shy in group situations; I need to push myself forward and let my voice be heard a bit more. So it’s been encouraging to get some indication that I’m on roughly the right track.

We’ve started the big search for showreel material and we had a class where we just all brought in a bunch of scenes that we thought suited our type and had a read of them with others in the class. It was quite exciting to try lots of different characters and so far I’ve got a scene from Atonement (playing James McAvoy’s character) to work on and potentially a scene from The Men Who Stare At Goats (playing Ewan McGregor’s character). I’m sticking with parts played by Scots, because… well… they’re the best!

For our Mike Leigh project this week we were out in the town as our various characters. Again we were assigned tasks and we had to complete them whilst remaining in character. Mine was to visit the National Gallery and view certain paintings. It was a fascinating assignment but I confess I probably found it a lot more interesting than my character did. Some of those paintings are such masterpieces it’s impossible not to be impressed. And then you go close up to them and discover: that water is delicate brush strokes or the glint on that axe is a tiny blob of white paint or that lighting is actually different shades of colour. Some are so huge it’s a wonder how the artist practically achieved it. I also saw the Greatest Painting in Britain, according to BBC Radio 4; ‘The Fighting Temeraire’ by J M W Turner (1839). So whether or not I did much character development that afternoon it was definitely a worthwhile and very enjoyable experience.

The advantage of living with International students is that I get to learn about and experience different cultures. The advantage of living with two Americans is… Thanksgiving. Since we would all have class on actual Thanksgiving Day (this Thursday) we decided to celebrate it the weekend before. My U.S. flatmates, Amy and Jill, had a busy Saturday baking and cooking all the traditional food. We had a real turkey, which took ten hours to cook, and I helped in the kitchen a little bit making mashed potato and stuffing. A good number of people came along, lots of mine and Markoesa’s classmates and other Americans from Central. Many of them brought more food so we ended up with masses (and lots of leftovers!) and in general everyone ate far too much, which, I’m told, is what Thanksgiving is all about. I had my first taste of sweet potato pie, which is amazing, and I decided I’d quite like to be American. Or failing that I’d like to go to America, preferably in time for Thanksgiving.

The evening eventually dissolved into a big Disney songs sing-a-long, which suited me just fine, and I suddenly realised I’ve really not been doing much singing, and I miss it… However ‘tis fast approaching the season to be jolly, Christmas lights are sparking up all over London, so I’ve no doubt there’ll be plenty of carol singing to enjoy soon enough. Fa la la la la!

Five, Still Alive

It’s crazy to think that already I’m more than halfway through the first term. I just know this year is going to go so fast. That’s an eighth of the course completed already!

I’m continuing to build a character for our Mike Leigh Project. Our tutor started giving us tasks to do which might be quite simple, like going for a run or going shopping, but we have to do them as the character. Whilst ‘in’ character if we meet any of our classmates we’re supposed to not recognise them, because our character wouldn’t know them, which is quite bizarre but fun. It’s interesting just how beneficial the process of simply ‘being’ the character is, and doing normal things but doing them as the character. The character experiences things differently to how I experience them and it starts to build an awareness of what it might actually be like to be that person.

I’ve finally chosen a scene to do for our theatre scenes showcase at the end of term. I paired up with a girl called Vicky and we discovered we’re both very much interested in period stuff. After a recommendation from my flatmate, Amy, we eventually settled on a scene from ‘Pygmalion’ by George Bernard Shaw (the play that My Fair Lady was based on). So I get to play Henry Higgins – a loud proud English gentleman – which should be fun.

This week I made the all important decision of which picture to use as my headshot. This will be my primary marketing tool, and the first thing that casting directors or agents or anyone will see of me, so it has to be good. The photo shoot was an interesting experience and my photographer, Simon Annand, was very good. It was about being different characters, and just trusting the thought, not trying to demonstrate anything on the face. If the thought is there then we see it in the eyes. And that’s acting. So I was learning a lot even in my photo shoot. Looking back at the photos afterwards I found I looked kind of angry in a lot of them. I think my face naturally looks quite intense and serious. However, with the help of some second opinions, I managed to find one that works quite well, and here it is:


So having settled on a church I did a bit of an All Souls marathon this week. Having gone to a morning and evening service on the Sunday I then went to an open evening on Tuesday night (where I met a guy from Elgin, lol!), back to the student Bible study on Wednesday, the morning service on Sunday, followed by a lunch with my Bible study group that afternoon, and then the evening service to finish. I don’t think they’re sick of me yet, so that’s a good sign.

I’m beginning to feel a bit out of place, like a spy in the enemy camp. I don’t fit in with all these ‘actors’; I’m not one of them. How could a polite and clean, well brought up young innocent boy (a son of the Manse no less) make it in acting? But I have crossed into their territory; and maybe from amongst them I can make a difference. Then again, maybe I am an actor. Because to get this far, and fool people into thinking I’m an actor, takes some acting…

Fantastic Four

When the energy levels plunge, and the fierce appetite goes, and it takes half an hour to get out of bed in the morning it’s time to start admitting it: I’m not getting enough sleep. I daresay I’m supposed to say I’m getting to bed late because I socialise too much or something, but the truth is I’m normally finishing off tomorrow’s homework, or prepping a scene, or memorising some text. It’s all good stuff but the fact remains that I simply don’t have the energy required for this discipline if I’m only getting, on average, five hours sleep each night.

The workload is gradually piling up. I counted how many times my tutors have given us a task or exercise and said we should be doing it ‘every day’. Seven times. That’s a substantial daily workload, and that’s on top of 9-6 classes! I’ve also started doing two cardio fitness sessions each week, one on Monday and one on Friday. These are basically one hour of non-stop moving and non-stop sweat. They’re tough, but they’re so good. As I’ve said, I love physical exercise; it makes me feel alive! And, strangely, it gives me energy rather than sapping it.

We finished our first performance project this week; making short silent films. It was rather fun to screen them with the whole class and see what the other groups had been working on. I was somewhat dissatisfied with ours. We were quite ambitious with the narrative and, having not worked on the script enough, the story didn’t really hold up. But it’s tough writing by committee, and I thought we did work admirably well as a group. Now we start our next project which involves everyone privately creating a character, in detail, and then our tutor will bring us together for improvisation and eventually form scenes with the characters (in the style of Mike Leigh). It’s like a big game of Cluedo!

Bonfire night in London is quite impressive and a busy night for the London fire service. I was walking down a street on my way to meet my classmates, the air thick with smoke; bangs, flashes and explosions going off on both sides and regular distant sirens. It felt a bit like walking through a war-zone, and for a moment I could glimpse a taste of what World War II London might have been like. Strange that our 'remembrance' of the 5th November has become a 'celebration' of explosives. Fireworks are pretty though, that I can't deny.

So I’ve finally settled on a church. There are so many good churches in London and each one I tried was appealing in different ways. I was looking for somewhere really Bible-based, that has musical-worship that I can enjoy, that provides lots of opportunities for me to serve and get involved, and where I feel welcome. This I have found at All Souls. It was the first church I tried and I knew then I really liked it. Going back, after five weeks, felt a little bit like coming home. So that’s where I’m sticking.

Once when I was in Sainsbury’s a loud Scotsman was having trouble at the self-service checkout and I heard the supervisor say they don’t accept Scottish money unless it’s sterling. I was SO tempted to step up and say, in piercing Scots drawl, “Excuse me! Is there a problem with the money?!” and then drop in the classic, “That’s legal tender!” I was tempted, but it was a Saturday morning and the supermarket was very busy so instead I just paid for my milk, grinned to myself and went home for breakfast.

FREEEDOM!!!

I dressed up as William Wallace from Braveheart for a Halloween Party. I’m not likely to get that opportunity very often so I thought I’d better make the most of it! Here’s a picture, for amusement sake.