DHG: A Year in Review or Blowing Me Own Trumpet

2010 has been the best year with regards to acting, which is wonderful but leaves you hoping 2011 can top it rather than disappoint, great success only keeps pushing the bar further up. As it should, I wouldn't want it any other way and obviously 2011 brings the joys and pressures of Our Style is Legendary as well.

Thing started very well, working with good friend Martin Collins in Spain on an Italian commercial...



And then, one of my proudest moments, my feature film debut was released in the UK and the US and is still doing the rounds on DVD, airplane seat backs and pay-per-view tele. It was really something to see my big hair and face up on the movie screen...



Have I told you all how much I love Norway? 2010 I got to go back again in order to sell glasses...



I managed to fit in a few more gigs of Poles Apart before working with Nottingham born director Dominic Murphy on a marvellous VW commercial that has unfortunately led to people shouting: "Pull yourself together" at me in the street. Just found out this is now making it's way to Ireland and France next year...



For me, the clear highlight of 2010 was the arrival of my own comedy creation, Kirky, who I have high hopes for as a star of UK television in the making. Kirky has took me to some lovely places, the BBC for a start and we made some more last month as well, so I can only hope that he'll be on everyone's TV even more often come 2011.



And then when I thought it couldn't get any better I secured one of those huge American TV jobs for Yahoo! directed by the finest commercial director of the last 15 years Bryan Buckley, where I got to mime to a Motley Cru song, which is perhaps the epitome of utter cool...



Surely the run of form would end here? No. Instead I got to work with Mark Denton again on some lovely looking Steam punk style Bulmer's adverts...





Towards the end of this year I crammed in some voiceover work, another Norwegian commercial, a film with Keith Chegwin, more Kirky, a short film and a national tour of the magical Hypothermia, one of the most challenging theatre roles I've ever had and, to be honest, a much needed return to treading the boards.

I'll leave you though with the full collection of vids I made for Gillette, which may be whoring of the highest order but they are funny as fuck and all made-up on the spot. Especially the one of me rapping. Here's to 2011 being even more awesome.

Kill Keith Filming Awaits

As mentioned previously, tomorrow I am filming for my next feature film entitled "Kill Keith" that stars Keith Chegwin (naturally) and a whole raft of classic British TV stars. It's a small role playing the investigating detective but it is always nice to asked and comes nicely before popping off on holiday to Aruba.

If no one out there knows who Keith Chegwin is, as may be the case with many non-Brit readers, this informative and amusing video should provide all you need to know about the man in question.



As always with these things, it is all kicking off at some ungodly hour, all the way out in Hayes, so it'll be early to rise for me before making my way out to Middlesex/West London borders. And I forgot to order more Nature Valley crunchy granolas bars (Canadian maple syrup flavour) from Tesco online. They make for a fine breakfast snacklet. Bugger. I may have to suffice with a sausage bap.

Now for some reason I am listening to a lot of Jimi Hendrix of late and this track keeps pulling me back to the play button over and over and over and over again.



I love the intense imagery of the crippled girl, stranded on the cusp of suicide as the golden space ship, which really didn't have to stop, sailed on by her. My mum got me into Hendrix and that particular verse always stayed with me as a child, haunted me as I tried to unpick what it meant. I'm still not sure but it is beautiful.

On on that note, I leave you with this:

Falling Off Of The Cusp

As promised, I share here that what was yesterday a moment of being "On The Cusp" has become a moment of falling off of that cusp, as I did not get the acting job in question.

On reflection, or as a device to cushion the blow, it was not as big a deal as I made out; it was merely yet another commercial but the money and director involved gave the job an extra air of kudos but I think I got ahead of myself and carried away about it's importance.

Doing commercials is a case of ever decreasing circles, the more you do the less you can then do, over exposure is a killer, this job would have been the nail in the coffin. I'm talking a good game of course but not getting this job means I can do the feature film I mentioned with Keith Chegwin and also do a theatre casting for a great wee show. I'm lucky enough to be able to have these options.

I suppose what galled me about this job was that people involved made me feel that it was mine, even at the casting today and so you build expectations, hopes, plan what you will do with the money and whatnot.

Acting is a career where sometimes the best man does not get the job and this was the case, I was the best man but the reason I didn't get the job? And if this doesn't speak volumes about the line of work I've chosen...I wasn't from Yorkshire.

That's right, it was all down to the county I was from.

You couldn't make it up.

On The Cusp

I am currently on the cusp of yet another large job, tomorrow will be the do or die. If I secure it, further grand financial renumeration comes my way and further exposure and further advancement and so on and so on and so on.

My current exceptional run of form will either come to an abrupt end (it will have to sooner or later of course) or continue to new, giddy heights that will make the eventual fall all the greater. Such is the life I have gleefully chosen. No regrets. No fears.

The present is very much about juggling and maintaining momentum, as I am currently attempting to cast an actor with profile (ie: famous, ie: on the tele) for my play for next year, you have to move early to secure talent and have meetings lined up with some very exciting people indeed, performers I would be honoured to have in my play but so much is up in the air. It will be with some regret and a hint of relief when all is pinned down and "Our Style is Legendary" begins to fully take shape.

And then there are the impending commitments I have next week, filming and then preparation and packing, as on the 28th August, all being well, Eva-Jane and I go on a holiday of a lifetime to Aruba; a luxurious vacation with no expense spared as we indulge ourselves and each other. We deserve it.

So tomorrow is a day that will shape a large part of my near future, I approach it like any other, I have already achieved much in 2010, I will press for more of course but understand that any good run has to end because you get stitch and then vomit into a hedge.

On TV Again...

Would you Adam and Eve it but yet another advert (making it's debut tonight, in the UK only I'm afraid) with my fizzog on will be appearing on your tele-boxes. Add this to VW, Kirky and my Yahoo! jaunt and I am verging on saturation point. No bad thing...unless you hate me...and the thing is with commercials, they are ever decreasing circles in that, if you do too many, people won't use you for a bit so I may be due for a crushing lack of work.

Having said that, I just got a part in a new feature film about killing Keith Chewin.

But more on that later...

The Guardian ran a nice little piece on the ad, with my face on, peering out at you from the screen like a Nazi hunter, which is always good for the old self-esteem.

It's for Bulmers of all people and I play the man who launches the frisbees so that people can have fun in the park during Summer. Don't ask. My character is called Steve. It was a fun shoot in Henley-on-Thames, in a massive field but I did get chronic hay fever and had to keep stuffing Vaseline up my nose. Costume was spectacular, a huge leather coat, bespoke top hat and antique racing goggles, topped off with a mustard polo neck that meant I nearly died in the infernal heat.

The upside was I got to meet Jeremy Paxman, who lived next to the field we were filming in. He was a jolly nice chap with his lovely kids and a wheezy old retriever following him dolefully about. He was very interested in our filming and recognised me from my appearances on the BBC as Kirky. This made me incredibly proud and I puffed out my chest somewhat. Compliments from Paxman, one imagines, do not come that often.

Tonight is the premier of the ad but I also shot some bits in character as Steve that will be seen around the place, they may also be posters. Anyway, here it is...