I seem to have lost my confidence again.

I’ll sit down to blog and instantly think it’s too silly, too revealing, too inappropriate or too anything else to be worth posting. Or else, as Joyce Grenfell once said of drying on stage, I go blank and all I can think of is “my own rear view in slacks!”

I’m not sure if this is chronic or transient, I hope the latter, but regardless of the blogging issues I am still working: studying dialect & verse speaking, practicing, generally loving working on Shakespeare and exercising my memory etc. And most importantly, progress is being made. So to boost my flagging confidence here’s a list. You know how much I like them

Memory: I am having a quite a bit of success in this arena. It turns out that it really does improve with practice. I’m not quite back to my previous standards – of learning a leading role in 3 hours or being able to recite entire scripts in a couple of weeks work but there is a definite improvement. I love the feeling that I’m getting there

Voice: I *think* I may have found my voice. I say *think* because I’ve come to the conclusion that my singing is notoriously unreliable. Only time will tell on this one.

German: Yes, I am continuing with my language work. I am not improving much though. I think I’ve still got it in my head that I’m bad at languages. It’s a mental pattern I’d rather like to lose. But how? That’s the question.

Dialect: Big Brother is back on. Yay! Which means I’m using the opportunity to practice my dialect work while doing some extreme people watching. Currently working on Bristol (not bad at all), Welsh (so-so) and Australian (pretty bad). What am I going to do with my summers when it’s gone?

As for my Shakespeare & verse work, I’m just enjoying watching lots. YouTube is proving invaluable. How did people study without it?!