Gizza Hand.
I'm still trying to fight the feeling my life's hit a stalemate.
This year is my seventeenth since leaving drama school and, while I've dipped in and out of a variety of jobs in the interim, I feel stuck. In a way, things were simpler when I was jumping from actor/musician work to work as I was pretty much always employed with a sense of an upward trajectory to my career. Then in-between that I'd do the odd play at the small theatre in my hometown to keep my hand in on straight acting and stop me feeling like I'd stepped too far from my original plan.
Admittedly, this wasn't without its setbacks. For much of this period, I was still feeling the brunt of my band's split - which was forced by my constant touring - and the sense of having made the wrong choices and taken the wrong route; this played on my mind daily and stunted my enjoyment of my work. My perception of this only really changed when I joined the writers' group The Comedy Project in 2005 and began to feel valued for something I'd actively created instead of blindly following in the footsteps of whichever actor/muso I'd replaced in whatever show. Around this time I also filmed the odd advert, which had the combined positivity of flexing my TV acting muscles (the mind boggles) while paying handsomely.
Since then, I haven't had appropriate representation that understood all the facets of my Jack-of-all-trades job. That's the root of my stalemate; I'm either seen as an actor/musician who's reasonably castable in adverts and nothing else or a comedy performer who doesn't stand out. Even openly commenting on this here feels risky as I don't want to put words in the mouth of a prospective agent (though having said that the right person should see beyond that to the positives that come with difficult categorisation).
What I need now is someone who'll help. I'm bored of being self-sufficient and, while I'll never stop maintaining control of my approach, the thought of active assistance is the ultimate luxury; imagine someone putting me in line for the right potential work. I haven't had that for ages, so it's long overdue.
This year is my seventeenth since leaving drama school and, while I've dipped in and out of a variety of jobs in the interim, I feel stuck. In a way, things were simpler when I was jumping from actor/musician work to work as I was pretty much always employed with a sense of an upward trajectory to my career. Then in-between that I'd do the odd play at the small theatre in my hometown to keep my hand in on straight acting and stop me feeling like I'd stepped too far from my original plan.
Admittedly, this wasn't without its setbacks. For much of this period, I was still feeling the brunt of my band's split - which was forced by my constant touring - and the sense of having made the wrong choices and taken the wrong route; this played on my mind daily and stunted my enjoyment of my work. My perception of this only really changed when I joined the writers' group The Comedy Project in 2005 and began to feel valued for something I'd actively created instead of blindly following in the footsteps of whichever actor/muso I'd replaced in whatever show. Around this time I also filmed the odd advert, which had the combined positivity of flexing my TV acting muscles (the mind boggles) while paying handsomely.
Since then, I haven't had appropriate representation that understood all the facets of my Jack-of-all-trades job. That's the root of my stalemate; I'm either seen as an actor/musician who's reasonably castable in adverts and nothing else or a comedy performer who doesn't stand out. Even openly commenting on this here feels risky as I don't want to put words in the mouth of a prospective agent (though having said that the right person should see beyond that to the positives that come with difficult categorisation).
What I need now is someone who'll help. I'm bored of being self-sufficient and, while I'll never stop maintaining control of my approach, the thought of active assistance is the ultimate luxury; imagine someone putting me in line for the right potential work. I haven't had that for ages, so it's long overdue.
