Hope Springs Eternal

With a hard winter gone and a good summer not yet upon us, Alannah and I took the chance to escape to Colonsay, an island in the Inner Hebridens, reached via the Oban ferry and spent three days tramping in the hills, glorying in the sun and gulping in the fresh air. I returned to Glasgow to give a lecture on Robert Louis Stevenson and Theatre for the Friends of Glasgow University and to enjoy the excellent exhibition of The Glasgow Boys at Kelvingrove Art Gallery.

Since then, our time has been given over to planning the launch of my latest book, ‘Greasepaint Monkeys’ An Actor on Acting for Luath Press, which will held in London on July 09. I’m delighted to say Dame Judi Dench found time to write the Foreword, since the book is dedicated to her late husband and my old friend, Michael Williams. Following this, a theatrical tour under the title, ‘Greasepaint Monkey’ is being planned around Scotland for the autumn. This will take the form of a one-man show highlighting the journeyman actor’s life with anecdotes and illustrations. As the blurb for the show says, ‘it puts the spotlight on the mystery behind the mystique, the sweat beneath the greasepaint and the excitement to be found in the second oldest trade in the world.’

Sadly, it was a fellow actor’s funeral that brought this sense of the theatre collegiate home to me. Tom Fleming, a great name in Scottish theatre, had been a colleague in so many theatre and television productions and his funeral was perhaps the finest tribute to his status that any actor could hope for. Many old friends were there and the selection of music and readings was exemplary. Needless to say, this was planned by Tom, himself, in the last few weeks of his life. It was a moving and uplifting day spent remembering him.

Meantime, Alannah and I are preparing for our next performance, which is a private showing of ‘A Mackintosh Experience’, which explores Mackintosh’s career and his marriage to Margaret Macdonald. This is a show which was done last at The House for An Art Lover in Glasgow and has been performed many times across the world in our international travels as Two For A Theatre.

After that, I will be resuming writing commitments and also continuing the search for a studio to start painting again. Why don't they bring in a 48 hour day. I could do with it, just to fit in all that I want to work on.