Glasses

 Photo: Sam Hare

Bear with me. This isn't strictly about Curious Incident; but, to paraphrase Apocalypse Now, it is impossible to tell my story without telling this one too.

I got new glasses towards the end of 2010. I was working for the National Theatre, and for Marianne Elliott, for the first time. I wore them as often as I was meant to - constantly - for five years.

For me, these glasses have sort of punctuated this tour. Early this year, while we were in Hull, a friend sent me an article which pointed out that my over-dramatic use of them in a key scene in Broadchurch was, frankly, a bit over the top.

Which was fair enough. I don't wear them on stage unless the part demands it; which isn't very often. So I leave them in my dressing room. Sometimes, people like Joshua Jenkins like to go in when I'm not there and put them on and take silly photographs.

In August, I left them on a train on the way to Sunderland. Due to remote venue scheduling, I was without them for four weeks. All I had, for a month, was my prescription sunglasses. I tried to explain to people that honestly, I wasn't trying to affect the backstage persona of some third-rate Jack Nicholson: it was simply the only way that I could see properly. Three days after I got them back, I broke them in Norwich whilst trying to prevent them from falling on the floor. They were glued. And again. And again.

Today - well: yesterday, now - on the way to work, my car suddenly caught fire in Sheffield. It was a terrifying few minutes in which I was convinced that someone would die: me, or any number of passers-by, or the astonishingly brave man who attempted to tackle my blazing car with a small fire extinguisher.

Anyway. I salvaged a few things from the charred carcass. I take a perverse kind of pleasure in that (a) these glasses survived, and we shall definitely now part company; and that (b) despite everything, the glue held.

It's a bit pre-emptive, with 8 weeks left, to be speaking of the end of a chapter. But that's what it feels like.

Sheffield

We're at the Sheffield Lyceum for two weeks. It amazes me, after all this time, that there are still audiences left to see this show. When you consider that this is our fifth visit to Yorkshire this year, or how near we are to towns that we've already been to - Nottingham, Stoke, Bradford, Leeds, York - it's astonishing (and quite exciting) that we're selling here as well as we are.

The last time I worked in Sheffield was in 1998, in Michael Grandage's wonderful production of Twelfth Night, with Malcolm Sinclair as Malvolio, Una Stubbs as Maria and Daniel Flynn as Orsino. We played for about a month in the Crucible, next door; and rehearsed in this room in the Lyceum.

For 17 years, I've always spoken about that show as the production I'm most proud to have been involved in. By the end of this year, I've a feeling that, from now on, I might be speaking of another play.

Norwich

I spent more of my childhood summers in East Anglia than anywhere else; so I'm particularly happy that this week we're playing a sell-out week at the Theatre Royal, Norwich. This is the only venue that we play in the region - no Ipswich, Cambridge, King's Lynn, Peterborough or Colchester.

We're not quite in the home stretch - it still takes two hands to count the remaining venues (just) - but we're getting there. After Aberdeen, it's nice to be a bit closer to home. Plus, I have fond memories of coming to visit my brothers - some twenty years ago - when they both studied at Norwich School of Art. My brother Sam, when he's not juggling various other things, writes songs. Some of them get their inspiration from East Anglia.

Aberdeen

We're in Aberdeen this week: for me, over 500 miles from home and the furthest north I have ever been in the world. Autumn has arrived very suddenly. I'm wearing a jumper, wishing I'd packed my hat and not profusely sweating in a theatre for the first time in months.

The show's in its autumn years, too: we're now into the last quarter of the tour. I've only done one year-long tour before; and I distinctly remember that, after about 250 shows, things can get a little weird.

When you say and do the same things 8 times a week for a year, after a while you start to hear yourself, which is sort of terrifying. You'll hear a line - one of your own, or someone else's - and think to yourself "Is that what normally happens? I'm sure I haven't heard that before". Then you're immediately in trouble. If you're thinking that, you're not doing what you're meant to be doing: focusing on the next line; acting. Suddenly things can fall apart. The most familiar experience in the world suddenly becomes brand new: daunting, overwhelming, out of your control.

These are little moments, but they do come. Thankfully, they can leave as soon as they arrive. Tonight, watching some of the other actors do their stuff, I remembered the joy and the love I have for this play. It came after a rare matinee-less Wednesday: a rejuvenating day in the Caingorms; driving through the towns and villages on the River Dee, an hour or so west of Aberdeen; the purple hills of the eastern Highlands. In the words of George Harrison, daylight is good at arriving at the right time.