After all this time...

‘Five years have past; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters!’ 

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Although I can’t say I’ll be visiting Tintern Abbey as Wordsworth did on his tour in July 1798, it certainly does feel like five long winters since my last tour.  Five is such a special number: five fingers, five minutes, five years.  It certainly doesn’t feel like five years but let’s look back just briefly at the Mr Alexander of five years ago.  February 2020.  Just a month before Boris’ sombre announcement when everything changed. A full summer booked, May to October.  Martin and I rehearsing for the summer season. All was good with the world.

It felt like being hit by ‘Calbourne’ the 02 class W24 Havenstreet steam loco going full tilt on the Isle of Wight Railway.

Within two weeks every show was cancelled. Martin left for Cairo, where he still is and I went round the bend, where I’m not still, thank goodness.

I did blog for a bit, but a Travelling Blog that doesn’t travel isn’t a Travelling Blog.  I struggled on with it for a few chapters and made some fairly feeble attempts at becoming a viral Youtuber. I had 16 followers. My Channel doesn’t even seem to be there anymore.  Not surprising.  I’m an entertainer.  I needed a live audience.

By the second wave of the Thing in 2021 I was lost.  Mental illness takes a lot longer to heal than a virus.  My family took me in and saved me from myself.  Hilary took the wreck in and started helping him put the pieces back together.  She is so good at that. She was, and my family are, and always will be, my rock.

I took on some teaching work, starting slowly as a Teaching Assistant, working my way up to Sanctuary Hub Manager in a local High School, working with all the rough diamonds and the misfits.  The neurodiverse.  Like me.  It was fascinating work, exhausting and enlightening.

The next bombshell hit in January 2023. A brave public apology letter from the Headteacher and Governors of my own school (I’ve blogged about the horrors of Christ’s Hospital before).  The apology was to the boys of the school who had been historically abused. I was floored because I was one of those boys. Here’s a copy of the letter if you’re interested -  www.mralexander.co.uk/ch-apology

It turns out that my favourite drama teacher had been jailed for six years for child sexual abuse at my school.  So that threw me into another downward spiral of guilt and anxiety. Long story, but I took some counselling, found out I had PTSD and dissociative amnesia and started writing a book about it.  I’ll put extracts on the blog at some point.  And again, my family and a chance encounter with another boy who, 56 years ago, had joined the school in the same house on the same day as I, picked me up, dusted me off…well you know the rest.

So now, two years on from this latest trauma, I say, enough of the grief and on with the show. 

This coming summer Mr Alexander is again, for one last season with the travelling stage, taking to the road.  The website has been updated here. So far with 6 or so dates from May to September.  This will be the last year of touring with the stage and therefore your last chance to see him in the full stage show.  Sadly, without the balancing chairs (taking risks is apparently a symptom of PTSD). Age has caught up with my muscle tone and balance.  There’s still much to be enjoyed though and it will be so good just to see you again in the audience.  Oh and in case anyone is worried that this is a Terminal Tour, no, I’ve not had any diagnosis of anything more worrying than a touch of arthritis here and there.  ‘I ache in the places where I used play.’ But, just in case, this will be a good chance to sum up, look back, remember, smile and laugh together again. A chance to say fare well, bye bye, arrivederci and so long.

Other news, relating to all the above, is that I’m about to open an online shop.  It’s a Magical Emporium containing the magic props, books and miscellaneous memorabilia from my life on the road.  Sign up here to hear when it opens.  There’s all sorts piling up on the shelves behind those closed doors.  The stage is there, on by far the largest shelf. And with each piece purchased comes a little gift and a story about why the item is so special, a script to recite with it, notes as to how I performed it or maybe just a memory of it as part of my travelling life.  By the end of 2025, everything must be gone so don’t delay, grab yourself a memory, while stocks last.

And ever so finally, I’ve made another little film, simply called ‘The Entertainer’.  Well, I say ‘I’, but Simon Brannen Thorpe the writer/director and my good friend, James Friel, the writer, had a bit to do with it.  I play three parts, each one of the trio that is me, myself and I.  Please look at the trailer here.

The film is going to the Berlin Film Festival and it tells much of the story that I have told in this and previous chapters of the blog and something of that which has occupied me in the five years since I saw you last, somewhere on the road.  And, indeed, for many of the many years before. It’s something of a Swan Song.

It’s not all doom and gloom though, as it does have a happy ending.  Too many spoilers already.

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander