Well, It's been a while, and to be totally honest, I'm not surprised. I have never been good at updating have I? Mea Culpa. I think one of the reasons is lack of extremely exciting news from Parker Town. Obviously I could fill you in on the minutiae of life, but I don't want to. There is SO much going on, but not a huge amount of it refers to acting. Family, politics, obviously, and my attempts to be a modern HYPHENATE.
Love that word. When I was a kid I had no choice but to act. Simple. Olly, my darling but oh so clever and prodigious slightly elder brother, could do all things. Of course we both did sport, and were pretty good. Olly was sodding Brilliant at rugby and tennis and Fives (an elitist version of squash, played with the hands!) and acting and academia. Not that I was at all intimidated. No pressure there Ol, thanks! But in the artistic field, he could write and perform, he could sing, maybe not the best, but he wrote his own songs and played guitar and piano. What I am getting at is that the boy could have gone in any direction. Rather like our glorious Pa, he was multi talented. The only problem was, when he said he wanted to act, write and direct there was a firm NO from the world. He had to choose. I remember well, one of my dad's best friends, Frank Hauser, who was a fantastic director in his day saying exactly this to him. "You can't do both, you have to choose" But NOW?
Now, it's almost de rigueur, you have to be multi faceted as an artist. Olly has obviously become a successful and creative director, writer and producer. He did used to act, but that was never his destiny, it was just a lovely arrow to have in his quiver. (oooh, I got all prosaic there). So at the age of ... whatever it was, I began to produce, not direct or write. As you all know, Annabel Lee has been wonderfully successful in it's realm. In fact it just won ANOTHER award, this time for it's music. Fan bloody tastic. And then came The Beast Must Die. Some of the biggest things I have ever been lucky enough to be involved in all ended reasonably, (or Unreasonably depending which way you look at it) early. Lynley was abrupt and not finished properly, The Beast was all geared up for a second series but ITV changed the financial structure of Britbox, and The Mirror and the Light, (or Henry, as I like to call the trilogy) had a covid hurdle that just proved to high. None of which did I have any power in, or they would have all continued. Hmmm.
So, with encouragement and a certain amount of blind faith, I have entered the world of writing and producing. I have to say I love it. LOVE IT. Letting thoughts and images pour onto pages is just such a relief. Olly said to me a while back, when I was wondering what to write, "Just write want you most want to play" So I did. He read it and said, "That's fucking expensive Nat". I always have had expensive tastes. Hehe. But now I can't really stop. I have done an adaptation, am writing a series and a full slate of stuff to get out into the world. I feel much more a master of my own destiny. Yes, I do need, indeed WANT, others to work with, I can't get any of this off the ground without co-productions and that in itself is so inspiring. Finding like minded (& mostly a few generations younger) folk is the best. And all this springs from the encouragement of my family to, "Just do it Dad!" Angel is already a proper HYPHENATE, and Raffi is proving the most intrepid and experimental wee lass I know. If I can catch up I will be soon riding on their coat tails! What a glorious life.