I auditioned today for a play called “Da” with my local am dram group. No idea if I’ll get something, but was fun to do it. I have to really will myself into doing this stuff – to get up on the audition day, leave the house and go do it, and then when I’m there I find myself thinking “oh this is the most natural thing in the world”.

The play is set in the 60s in Dublin about a writer returning home after the death of his Da, and while doing so he reconciles with his da – and relives moments from his childhood – the director called it a memory play – playing out his past memories on stage and talking to those ghosts, himself as a child, his da and other people.

Was worried I wouldn’t be able to hit the Dublin accent, I’d bought a copy of the play and had read through it a bit, and it was hard to maintain, but performing in front of people was easier (though at one point it went full on Cornish, but that’s ok, a temporary blip!)

As the world turns to embrace trump online, I’m finding I want to take solace in the world offline- next week I start Improv comedy for beginners. Another thing as long as I don’t think about I’m ok, but as it comes round I’ll find myself thinking “no, you’re gonna make a fool of yourself” – but I suspect, like acting once on stage once I’m doing it, I’ll really enjoy it. Told my mate Jim, the secret to getting work out of me is that I need instant feedback and flattery – I’ve got a dog like need for attention and treats.

So regardless of the play (which if I don’t get a part in I’ve volunteered to help back stage) over the nex six weeks I’ll be doing improve classes every Tuesday, leading to a performance. After that, I dunno. If I enjoy it? Who knows.

Hope you had a good Christmas, mine involved a lot of driving and eating and cooking and eating and some sleeping. Pretty pretty good. The main event, for me, was the receipt of the fantastically large Extremity Signature Edition by Daniel Warren Johnson, this baby will get poured over when John McCrea next visits…

I’m 55 today. I’ve been blogging on this here internet since 1999. Over 35 years of nonsense. It turns out, a lot of drivel used in some small part of help LLMs churn out ever more drivel.

How’d this year go for you? The two significant things for me, was finally completing the couch to 5k thing and then doing sundry park runs. My running is still a stop start affair with spaces of walking (not always, I’d managed to get to a point where I could do a 32minute 5k but you miss a week and it’s a bit of a hard reset).

Plan in the coming year is to get more consistent with the running and bring that time down.

The other significant thing was a return to acting – I’ve had an off again/on again relationship with performing from a young age, acting in primary school (being told to audition for a professional play, bottling it through nerves) acting in secondary then putting it away until uni (at age 23) and doing a bunch of plays (getting nominated for an Irish Student Drama award for Best Supporting Actor) and then giving it up altogether around age 27, then coming back to it in 2016 age 46. Did a few plays, really enjoyed it, but events over took and covid and then coming back to it this year. I felt differently about it. I’m more prepared to embrace it and dive headlong in to it. I feel about it, much the way I felt about drawing comics when I was in my twenties. I loved my day job, but drawing was great fun to do and allowed a recharge. Then when drawing became my day job, there was nothing to let met recharge.

I think if I spend the next 20 years doing. bit of acting, having fun on stage, that’s not a bad way to think about the future.

Plus, to be honest, I have been feeling … burnt out a bit with drawing. A slow dawning realisation that I will never be doing anything other than drawing at a table (and as much as I love that, the thoughts of doing nothing but that until you die lingers like a prison sentence) so having – as my mate Jim often says “a third space” – somewhere that isn’t home and isn’t work, but is just for me, that has really helped.

Forward in the year, more auditions (no guarantee I’ll get any part, but even if I don’t I’ll volunteer in some way, having been away from the local am dram and come back to it, the welcome back has been lovely) but ALSO, starting in January I’ll be doing an Improv comedy class. And I’m sort of determined to make something happen there. I don’t know what, I don’t know how, and it will never rise above hobby, but I want to do something.

I’ve spent 20 years of my life working in IT, and drawing, then 20 years just drawing, and the next 20 I’d like to spend it drawing and doing fun stuff on stage with people.

Have a great one, I’ll be back with a count of presents, a birthday blog and I think some new year’s resolution. I don’t want to preempt what I’d like to say as we roll from the old year into the new, but there’s things I’m optimistic about outside of work, and that’s fired me up a bit about work too. Turns out if you do something other than the one job all the time then you can get a bit of a renewed lease on that work.

Thanks for sticking with me, if you’re on the blog ever. Let’s see if I can get a bit more life into this place next year, eh.

I’m sending this out today, but really my Christmas spirit is somewhat lacking, given my wife has been down with the flu for a week.

Well, the play is over – six shows, all done and sold out every night.

I’ve really enjoyed going back to acting (again) – and it has been great fun. It’s a bit of a time sink, but, to be honest, I spend far too much of my time at the drawing table anyway, and this is a fun way to escape it.

What’s next, I dunno – Southbank Playhouse (the am dram club I’ve been a member of since 2016 and who did the show) do three shows a year, so will wait and see what they’ve got lined up next before deciding to audition, but I feel ready for more.

A few members of the cast also do improv comedy, and I think I’m going to take a swing at that too – there’s a local guy who teaches it, and classes start in February.

Anyway, enjoy these photos of me sporting a beard and my actual belly, and not padding as my dad thought.