Back in Cambridge

Egad! A few closely associated visions swim into my mind... Leisurely punts a-puttering past, serenaded by floating string quartets and the compulsory quaffing of elderberries and caviar... Doffing my mortar board and addressing professors by their first names (oh, lor!)... The usual run of unfailingly polite and lovely people... Argh - truly I am back in the land of the loonies! No chance of being egged by Northern louts over here!* No, sir!

There have been a few developments, of course. I've swapped accomodation from the impeccably brown, silverfish-ridden horizons of Selwyn College's distinguished Cripps Court. I've gravitated just across the road to Ann's Court this year, which is light (relatively), airy (sort of) and spacious (when I'm not in the room). It's also connected to the building that served as the backdrop in Love's Labour's Lost, so I'm entertaining the deluded concept of somehow living in a theatre. Oh, Swanton. You sad, troubled fool. I'm in Room O2 (the arena, as it shall henceforth be called - which means I'll soon be staging a Les Miserables concert featuring the immortal Jenny Galloway!)... This information will be of definite interest should you wish to leave a brown paper bag of flaming literature outside my door. Or set about egging it into submission. Or something like that.*

I'm back early for a purpose, of course. Rehearsals for The Alchemist are already well underway, and the production looks set to be a very exciting one indeed. There was also a real buzz about the last effort (and one not to be confused with the adrenaline rush of piecing Jonson's comic masterpiece together in only a week), and this is only multiplying in the resurrection. One of the most pleasant things about Alchemist 1.0 was precisely this early start; the opportunity to work, relax, rehearse and simply function in the Disney-esque surroundings of Cambridge without any of the organised stress that normally crowds in on you in the form of supervisions, classes, lectures, meetings, and insistent, harrowing deadlines. I felt captain of my soul and master of my destiny. Academically speaking - and only until term got properly underway.

There have been a few other marginal developments as of late. I've managed to secure a low commitment gig with Varsity, who have bafflingly granted me permission to rant about a different classic horror film on a weekly basis. This is sure to distract me even further from the upkeep of the ol' blodgings, as well as see me prostrate with grief and howling in agony at three o'clock in the morning on a weekly basis, unable to construe another synonym for 'terror', 'fright', 'Lon Chaney Jr.', ecetera. (I kid - it really shouldn't be too much extra work, once I adjust to the technique of saturated, sensationalist writing!) I've also rediscovered my old hatred for sin. This is a weird little habit of mine, strictly non-religious, and more based on an intrinsically personal compass of morality. Maybe that's in response to the great, tottering heap of work I've set myself this term. The degree is taxing enough, but add to that two plays (both intense in their own ways) and an expansive amount of writing, and life goes spinning into a crazed sort of orbit. It's exciting though. I may never again be so stressed or so busy - or so alive. Keeping busy is the best of all things. I wouldn't have it any other way, and I'm fortunate indeed to have been gifted with an environment that fosters - nay! - encourages it. And on that note, I will quote Charles Dickens's defence of just the same, as found in a letter to his devoted correspondent John Forster:

Too late to say, put the curb on, and don't rush at hills - the wrong man to say it to. I am incapable of rest. I am quite confident I should rust, break, and die, if I spared myself. Much better to die, doing. What I am in that way, nature made me first, and my way of life has of late, alas! confirmed.

Just as expected from the man who vowed to 'tear myself to pieces' in his final enactment of the 'Sikes and Nancy' murder from Oliver Twist. The pledge was a hollow one - he tore himself to pieces with it every time, and most certainly hastened his death in the process. I have no such fatalism in mind, but I am steeling myself for what's likely to be the most action-packed few months of my existence to date. I shall not go down with egg on my face!* No, sir - no, no! Bring on the work!

*I was egged on my way home in York! Shocking - utterly! It was all so perfectly civilised at first! I'd just completed my last day at the Dungeon, rounding off what was by far the happiest acting experience I've ever had; the sun was shining gaily; I walked past the Theatre Royal, the art gallery, the ancient city walls - the birthplace of Auden, for goodness' sakes! Then, quite unexpectedly, a heavy object came sailing out of a car window and struck me rather hard... For some reason, I instantly assumed it to be an apple core, to which it had at least been approximate in size and weight... But a study of the ground revealed a less pleasant sight still: sticky, foetid, poisonous yolk. Ah ha-ha! Interesting indeed. I'll admit that I have a somewhat severe face when I'm roaming freely and consider myself off-duty, but I didn't for one moment think my homely mug warranted a drive-by fit of eggery. Fortunately, the egg brushed my sleeve only - which was still unpleasantly yellow - which just goes to show that certain pillocks can't even get draining the life-blood of society completely right. I live as usual!