Yesterday was a buzy day. Well, that’s only half right – yesterday morning was spent catching up on t.v on iplayer. There was a time when I liked nothing better to park myself in front of the telly and watch whatever was on. These days I’m more selective, and the great thing about iplayer is I can just watch the programmes I like. These happen to be both on America – one by schalma, the other by fry.

Yesterday afternoon was, of course, rehearsal. Rage is coming on nicely, I think. It’s fascinating to watch Ricardio in action: he is, to be honest, quite a strange guy, but it’s a strangeness that comes with intelligence. Many people just don’t get him, and think he’s an ass, but I’ve liked him since the moment I first told him to stop talking paranoid crap. Thus he has an odd ability to get superb performances out of people.

His master’s thesis was on rehearsal techniques. These days I’d maintain that in many respects the long slow process of rehearsing is far more interesting than the final play – what the audience see is only a minute part of what goes into a play. It reminds me of Christopher Tolkien’s ”History of Middle-Earth” which enable the reader to see how JRR Tolkien arrived at Lord of the Rings by a long process of drafting and re-drafting. I love seing how things evolve; how they are distilled down to the end-products. You get that in film, too, with making-of documentaries.

Anyway, talking of thesises, mine won’t distil itself.