Thirty-nine and Lookin' It.

Today's birthday's officially known as "The one before forty"; shit it.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it; I don't know where the time's gone. My thirtieth (which I spent on stage in the Netherlands, having Happy Birthday sung to me by a theatre-full of Dutch people who went into an inexplicable mass-chant afterwards) seems like only yesterday. And now I'm a year away from achieving the lifespan of John Lennon.

Part of the problem with being an actor is for your first few jobs you're probably the youngest person in the cast, so you feel the need to age up. Then before you know it, you're somewhere in the oldest 25%. As long as I can spend the rest of my career cast in shows about the elderly, I can maintain the illusion of youth (though if my over-washed lockdown hands are anything to go by, I'll be making my living as an octagenarian hand-double).

I even scuppered myself by choosing Glyn as my double act partner as he's exactly a year younger than me. I'll forever be the one that hits those big, significant birthdays first. The only way to win this is to die the year before one of them, so he overtakes me, but is that really winning? If I can just spend all my downtime in a keg full of Nivea body lotion, I might be able to slow the ravages of time just a little bit.

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