December

Looking frankly plaid in a verbatim theatre piece at Wilton's Music Hall called Are We Nearly There Yet? by Matthew Lloyd (photo: Stephanie Wolff). A cast of four actors performed this gripping 75 minute event with iPhones in our pockets and earPhones in our ears. I had the privilege of re-creating five real people: an American writer at Karl Marx's grave, a softly-spoken ex-actor who describes his breakdown on a train, an Indian-American convinced that he will die young, a mountain-climbing Genghis Khan expert and the tortured son of a famous Austrian poet. This was one of my most enjoyable acting jobs ever. No lines to learn, an exciting and unfamiliar art form, a spooky but friendly old building and lots of socializing time in the bar afterwards. The event was a trial run for something grander in the future and was regarded by all as a huge success.

Was also recently in Brighton to record an episode of a dramatised Roald Dahl short story, playing a surly, middle-aged East Coast business type opposite (for the umpteenth pleasurable time) the well-known American actress and super-Tweeter Lorelei King as my long-suffering wife. Oh, and I also play the taxi driver in the same scenes (the magic of radio, etc). This particular gem, narrated as always by the silky-voiced Charles Dance, goes out in a plum slot on Radio 4: the afternoon of Christmas Day.

I have recently been cast as a moody 14 year old teenager in a new 26 part animation series. Details, no doubt, in the New Year...