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My Covid test came back negative, so now all I have to do is pass the test that will be administered when I arrive on set tomorrow and I am in a film. I chatted to the director on zoom today and I have to say it looks like a really exciting project, though scary too as we have to improvise our parts. Luckily I am playing an overweight man in his fifties whose life is falling apart so it's not too much of a stretch. It's a good role, though I am not the main part, but the good thing about impro is that I can MAKE myself the main part by just shouting over everyone else's lines.
I have to provide my own costume, but that's pretty easy as the character has put on weight recently and so his nice clothes don't fit him and so he's looking pretty scruffy for a posh occasion. That's my lockdown story, so it's lucky I didn't have to wear a nice suit as I wouldn't have fitted into them. But the horrible old ones are reassuringly just a bit tight or much too baggy.
I wonder if the whole film is just a pastiche of my own ambitions to be fit.
I am not sure how much I will be able to reveal as the week goes by, but will keep sending you cryptic messages from the set.
When I tweeted about it the director of my 2007 TV film "You Can Choose Your Friends" replied to congratulate me, mainly on getting some work during the pandemic. Perversely I have probably done more acting in some stage of lockdown than I have managed in all the time since we worked together. It's typical of me and my upside down life that my acting career starts to flourish in terrible conditions.
Perhaps being a slightly crushed middle-aged man was what I needed to be to get work. All the romantic leads are now too old to get the parts that I was too weird to get. But I have the last laugh playing all the weird parts that they are too normal for.
I have also been emailed some letters that explain that I have a job that can't be done in isolation and so have permission to travel. Like I am in the Great Escape or something. I am driving though, as I am going to Wales and I think public transport is too risky.
Obviously I will be unable to do my Twitch stuff this week, but snooker will return on the 18th and RHLSTP will be on the 20th with Pompeii expert Dr Sophie Hay. We will then be only one week ahead of podcast broadcast, so I hope Hollywood doesn't come calling or that will really fuck up all my online and puppet work.
Now just don't fuck it up Rich.
