YOU KNOW WHEN YOU ACTUALLY BELIEVE YOU’LL DO IT THIS TIME?
Every New Year I make a list of ‘Stuff I want to do’. Not ‘resolutions’, because they’re for grown-ups (and we never do them anyway), just ‘stuff’.
Sometimes the list makes War and Peace look like a postcard and, occasionally, it’s an acceptance of the fact that you can’t MAKE things happen. The last time this happened, there was one thing on the list, ‘F*ck it’.
This year, I have decided to devote more time to the things I love doing……and I honestly think that, for the first time in my life, I might just accomplish this. I mean, don’t put your life savings on it, but there’s a resolute feeling inside me that I don’t need to be resolute anymore.
The loss of three friends in the last year has made me appreciate what I have and, for once, that appreciation hasn’t waned. Working in the arts is always a tightrope between earning enough money not to have to sell my body (because, basically, you can’t get much with £3.50 nowadays) but also, giving you the fulfilment of creating your own work, a feeling that truly can rarely be bettered.
I’m also now into the fourth month of rehab following a knee replacement and, as usual, even though I was told it would be six months before I was 90% better, I’m currently being an impatient 7 year-old, wondering why I’m not fully recovered. Again, this has made me appreciate what I have: how lucky I am to have a home (and that flat sharing is gone forever!), and reasonable health, and a job I love, and wonderful friends who continually tolerate my constant need for humour. So, this is the basis for me looking at the world from a slightly different angle and realising that 70 hour weeks and five concurrent projects are probably not the best way of running my life. So, ‘less stuff, better quality’, is the way forward. Quality of work and quality of life.
And, speaking of ‘Stuff’, I’m currently working on a ten-episode TV series. Having an absolute ball with it. I try to spend at least three afternoons a week at the National Theatre Café, immersed in the collective energy of so many creatives working in such a fabulous space (what IS the collective noun for creatives? A Drama? A Desperation?), drinking copious decafs and finding the last vestige of willpower to not consume the entire cake counter. I’m LOVING it!
I’ve also just finished the first draft of a tour of His Majesty’s Theatre for LW Theatres which will be, hopefully, running alongside my tours of Theatre Royal Drury Lane and the London Palladium very soon. I’ve so enjoyed researching this amazing theatre (the second oldest continuously operating theatre on the same site in the world). His Majesty’s has been my home-from-home, my go-to place in between acting jobs for SO many years. I’ve done just about every job at Phantom of the Opera: Usher, Lighting Technician, Stage Doorkeeper….. About the only thing I haven’t done there is play Christine!
My new play, Dancing in Time, will be having a staged reading soon. Can’t wait to do this one. Feedback, even negative feedback (which is usually more helpful, as long as it’s constructive) is so useful to help me take it to the next stage,
And I’ve recently filmed a great little Short called ‘Red Ink’ which, I’m delighted to say, has won the best thriller award at the UK Short Film Awards. So nice when unexpected things surprise you!
Here’s to a happy and contented 2026.
David