Davros:   Rather nicely done, I thought, yes.
Unexpected regeneration cliffhanger:  Yes indeed, liked that very much.
Torchwood, Martha (who's forgotten how to act again), Sarah Jane (yay):  Yes, ok, I'll buy that, made me smile.
Stolen planets in perfect balance (one of them Callufrax Minorr, a nice touch): Nod to the past, reasonably subtly done, yes.
but
Harriet Jones, former prime minister: A weak joke the first time, weaker still now, worse with the Dalek providing the punchline.
Harriet Jones, technical genius behind the subnet?  What? WHAT?
The Dalek "message" being just "Exterminate" over and over...  really, Russell, you can do better.

Here we go.  A week into rehearsals and, in traditional fashion, I've hit my usual paranoia, doubting myself, certain I've tried the patience of my fellow cast members, and so on and so forth.  The regularity with which this always afflicts me would be quite funny, if it wasn't so annoying and debilitating.

What is it about the human psyche, that makes it so much easier to latch on to your own solitary low self-opinion, than all the nice things other people have ever said about you?

Screen. Green pencil sharpener, tupperware box, old phone. Diary. Journal.
Keyboard
Edge of desk.
Me.
Chair.

Bookcase, side-desk.
Paints, evidence of lack of artistic ability (relief, actually). Newspaper, desk light, wigblock, phone.
Laptop.
Me.
Chair.

Scanner, router, wifithingy.
Printer.
Turntable.
Pot of paperclips, broken camera.
Mug, highlighters.
Mouse, keyboard.
Edge of desk.
Me.
Chair.

Nothing.

...whether anybody actually reads this rubbish.

Can it really be so long?  Just a shade over four years ago.  We sat, amid candles, wine and cheese, on that disreputable velour sofa of mine, framed by (I can think of no better term) the squalor of my old house.  We watched Julianne, Anthony and Giancarlo in their beautiful, dark wonderful gavotte.  I cried (of course).

It's been four years since I last watched it.  Incredible.  Why did I leave it so long?  How did I leave it so long?  It was bad enough that I waited three years to see it in the first place, but to wait a further four to see it again?  Awful.

Silly thing is, it was an act of desperation.  After a day of increasing dark, I needed something to occupy the evening.  Something safe.  Two crates of borrowable choice in the lockup (including this, of course - how daft is that!), but it was closed for the day, so Tesco was my rescuer.  There on the shelf. £5.  Odd that such a thing should be "safe", but there it is, I never could explain how these things work... but of course, it's perfect. The perfect, exact-fitting, cockinthehole antidote to all that ails me tonight.

Vide cor meum still rips me to pieces, of course, but that's unlikely to change.

As if there weren't already enough reasons to feel optimistic about the future of a certain well-known revived sci-fi television series, when the producer's mantle passes to its new bearer...



It's hard to explain why, but this picture makes me really happy.
What's not to like about a man who possesses such a filing system?

Just home from shooting a short film down in Bournemouth, in which I play the character of Santa.  I'd better not go into too much detail about it before it's completed and actually 'out there' as it were, but suffice it to say it's satirical, surreal, and very funny.  A very talented team, too, which usually makes for a nice working atmosphere.  There were no flaps, no strops; just everybody getting on with what they had to do.
And hospitable:  The producer and director both gave up their beds so that I, and another cast-member, could have somewhere to sleep while we were filming. There was food, there were snacks, there was beer.

Yesterday was my shooting day (they have two more including today).  It began at around 7.30, at a small private tennis club, where two of us spent several hours running around showing just how bad our tennis skills were, as we attempted to produce a convincing rally for the camera.  Must have been good exercise; my legs still ache today!

So. The Edinburgh Fringe show, which I'm itching to get to grips with, but can't.  I liked very much the glimpse of script that I saw at the audition, but that was over three weeks ago.  It's been more than a week since I heard I'd got the part, and it's quite an effort of will to keep the enthusiasm for it alive, without something tangible to look at.  I have the tantalising evidence of the rehearsal schedule, so I know when I'll be doing things, but not yet what. Please, Mr. Postman, bring me a script tomorrow...

At the same time as all this, it turns out Counterfeit Skin is being revived. Hooray!  Except that its performance dates coincide exactly with the period when I'll be in Edinburgh, so I can't be involved.  Quite a sad and poignant moment this morning, seeing the job advert for Leo pop up on CastingCallPro.

So, in summary:  A play I'd so love to do again, but can't, because of another play, for which I've yet to see a script.

It's fine, of course, that's just the way life is, but it's deeply frustrating.