29 March

Back from UK at 12.30 am and in the morning straight into emotional decision time as the group have decided that XXXX should finish from everything. 40 dei. Love Patrol. Everything. I am so sorry. I wouldn’t have voted that way myself but I do understand why they have done this. He was locked up overnight for being drunk and disorderly early in the shoot last year. Then locked up towards the end of the shoot and held for two months on rape charges. Charges dropped eventually but not before the group had had to face endless comments about WSB behaviour from the of course angelic community who never do anything bad. The final straw for the group was probably that, he has been seen by many people drunk in town. But he is so talented and it is very sad. My qualms are that this is a turning point.WSB recruits a lot of at risk people. At what point do we say we can do no more? The rape charge just led to the group receiving so much recrimination, even though he was in the end not guilty. I suppose they feared for their own jobs and felt they too were being accused.

On a brighter note, the new staging looks potentially exciting. In the round , based around three small playing areas connected by walkways.

XXXX came to the house distraught and in tears. Always those mixed feelings; his despair is genuine but sadly  although he could find  reasons for getting drunk he could not see how idiotic a thing it was to do after the recent publicity and  when his job was on the line. He cannot blame himself.

30 March

Jo feels she cannot just write XXXX's part in Love Patrol out with one line ‘Bye bye I’m going fruit picking in NZ’ so we meet with the group to come to a compromise which they accepted with good grace. His story line by the end of series 4 will be at a point where he could be left out of series 5 if there is one. ..or continued if he can get back on track. We ring him to tell him. Hard to tell if he was pleased or not. Good rehearsal on 40 Dei though. Danny will be different from XXXX but he is a good actor and reviving it with a completely different staging gives everyone something new.

31 March

A big general audition as we search for the new XXXX. Another young male actor has also left because he felt too much of  what WSB did workwise was in conflict with his religious beliefs. No comment!!! So quite a talent gap in the young man area to fill.

We had 94, mostly young, men and women come to the audition. All unemployed. By the end of the day we had whittled it down to a shortlist of 19. Initially we were only going to take 3 men for 40 dei but the energy and talent on show meant that we revisited the budget and reduced the part time wages we were gong to pay in order to give more youth the opportunity. Depending on tomorrows audition we can take 7 youth, mostly men as that is where we are short on numbers for 40 dei. One feels a mixture of happiness that one can offer these young people something that they wont find in most jobs open to them and also sadness that so many youth have nothing to do in their lives.

 1 April

As we suspected the promise of the previous day was not totally in place by the end of the second day’s audition. The first day’s pieces we gave them were both short monologues directed out at us and the second piece in particular was a bit of clowning that they all seized on. Today we gave them a more emotionally charged piece to act in pairs and they came over a bit rawer but nonetheless the overall level of the shortlist was higher than many I can recall, even if it seems less likely it contains another XXXX. As if to taunt me with this, I am eating lunch with Mike in the nutrition centre when a clearly hungover, still slightly drunk XXXX comes up to me. We had planned to hold a farewell lunch for him but had run out of time and it had been postponed. He had come to tell me he would come to any lunch Jo or I organized but not one organized by the group. 

The group was gracious enough to agree to Jo’s writing request to keep him in series 4 which gave him a lifeline and now he is spitting on them. He wanted to see Jo so I told him to go to the house but he never appeared. Titus was going to try and find him and prevent him from going on an Easter bender that would seal his fate forever with the group. 

I swing between anger and tears. He is so talented and yet seems lost to us at the moment . I feel responsible as I was the one who first met XXXX as a bouncy out of school 15 year old when he came down to the centre looking for work 7 years ago. He took Jo and I to meet the gang of lads he hung out with and whose antics he feared he was increasingly being drawn towards if he couldn’t find work. I will never forget the night we sat talking to those 20 odd lads about their lives. It was the night that gave us the inspiration for  Solid Sistas, which was XXXX's debut show. For the next 6 and a half years he proved to be one of the most electric actors ever to have worked for the group. Maybe it’s a classic case of fame at a young age leading to ruin. Could we have done more for him? Can we still reach him? Anyone reading this who has  any ideas, please contact me. However much society is frowning on him now, he has given a lot of pleasure through plays and film to a lot of people in this country. He needs our help as much as our censure.