Not enough seasons

Happy Easter! This really is the rebirth time but it feels like everything is blocked. It always rains in April so what the hell, but the cold is still clinging on. About time we had a proper winter, perhaps… But did it have to happen in spring? Damn I hate the cold.

The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse inside The Globe building operates in all weathers, this shit included.


I have wanted to see something there for a while. I first experienced it performing what they call a “Read not Dead”. That’s where a little performed Jacobean play is staged for an audience of academics. It’s part of the Globe Education program and I can see how it would be useful to the academics. Performance is so completely different to theory. These verse plays, borne from a time where the oral tradition was losing traction because of the printing press – they are not meant to be studied on paper, they must be heard. They are spoken events. The word “here/hear” is a perfect example. Spoken it means both. But the printing press came and the compositor has to make a choice, even though the writer says “I mean both.” So it’s very helpful to the fusty academic types to heere these “lesser” plays performed. You can’t easily sustain a run of an obscure Jacobean play unless it’s got Famousy mcFamous in it and even then you’ll struggle. Better off for producers to do whatever’s on the GCSE syllabus yaaaawn. Which is why Read not Dead exists.

Anyway, the playhouse is filled with candles when there’s a “proper” show on. I went to see Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with a chamber orchestra and some puppeteer friends. I saw the candles, and occasionally the puppets. I only paid a tenner, you see. My view was… well I could see the orchestra. There were some attractively designed benches, and some people puppets beautifully animated but mostly out of sight. And the top of my friend’s head making me all too aware of the passage of time.

For a tenner I was very happy. I saw the musicians play. That was beautiful constantly. Plus I understood that the puppets had a pretty shit time mostly. Occasionally it was easy in puppetworld. They did a lot of swimming or flying, which I could witness. There were also butterflies, a nice cat and black things that might have been depression. And it all went full circle, just like life, really.

Then we stopped by the Tate modern, where some lunatic literally clocked himself in every hour for a whole year in 1981, and took an hourly photo, even through the nights when he was sleeping – he woke hourly. A whole year. The photos are all lined up round a wall. Thousands of them.


It’s a testament to how ridiculously stubborn a human being can be. He must have sacrificed so much life for his obsession. I understand that. I am writing minimum 500 words daily no matter what mood I’m in or what damage it does. It’s 2.45am right now. This whole blog process has become almost insurmountably difficult now I’m not only fighting technology but also now watching my words. I don’t really know why I’m doing it anymore. I’m losing faith. I’m just keeping on because I’m too stubborn to stop.

I’ve started to have bad things come from this blog. That was never the plan.

The rain is smashing my window . The clock is past 3. Fuck it I’m posting again and I’m not going over and trying to edit again on this phone because it’s basically impossible. Goodnight. Zzzz rain zzzz

Author: albarclay


4 thoughts on “Not enough seasons”

  1. I really enjoy your blog and do hope you keep it up..for a bit more at least. I like seeing the world through your observations. Thanks for taking the time to write it.


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