An Actor Arrives At the Bristol Old Vic

I remember the grey slithers of rain, The jocular driver As I boarded the bus At Temple Meads, And the friendly lady who told me When we had arrived at the city centre. I remember the little pub on King Street, With its quiet maritime atmosphere.   I remember tramping Along Park Street, Whiteladies Road and Blackboy Hill, My arms and hands aching from my bags, To the little cottage where I had decided to stay And relax between rehearsals, Reading, writing, listening to music. I remember my landlady, tall, timid and beautiful. (The origins of "An Actor Arrives" lie in the barest elements of a story started but never finished in early 1980, while I was working at the Bristol Old Vic playing the minute part of Mustardseed in a much praised production of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was originally rescued in 2006 from a battered notebook in which I habitually scribbled during spare moments offstage while clad in my costume and covered in blue body make-up and silvery glitter. And while doing so, some of the glitter was transferred from the pages with which they were stained more than a quarter of a century previously onto my hands...an eerie experience indeed.)