Drunk in Shoreditch

I like bars. Not big noisy bars with music blaring out so loud that you have to shout to hear yourself speak and you can only catch half of whatever your neighbour is saying and where you go home with ears ringing knowing that you are going to have hearing problems later in life. Not bars that are so crowded that you have to wait hours at the counter, pushing and being shoved while trying to catch the attention of an overworked barman. Not bars with large screens showing darts and football or news channels that no-one can hear. And not bars so modern that the walls are bare, the seats uncomfortable and the well-dressed clientele between 25 and 35 trying to impress each other and only displaying how vacuous and self-centred they are.

I like bars with history, with character, with seats you can sit on, barstaff who have time to talk to you, a few other drinkers in the late afternoon. Bars like The Drunken Monkey in Shoreditch before the end of work crowd piles in.

Actually, I'd never been in the Drunken Monkey before Saturday, when I spent half the day shooting a music video there. But it was the kind of bar I feel at home in. The wall is lined with coloured bottles of alcohol from all over the world, much of which I recognised, some of which was new to me and which I would have liked to try. But although I was playing a drunk, in a stereotypical drunk's pose, hunched over a shot glass, with a half-empty Jack Daniel's bottle before me, the alcohol before me on the other side of the bar remained undrunk.

Of course I wasn't the star of the film. That honour goes to the bear pictured here and the shoot in the bar was only one of several in which the bear appears. But it was good to be on set again and to compare this with the other two films I have been in.

Made by students, there was an element of professionalism behind the camera, but not on the production side. I was not the only person, according to Eddie Connor (the barman) who had turned up for his audition to find that no-one at the building reception knew that casting was taking place. Several people, he said, had walked away without being seen. I had known about the bar shoot only because I had contacted one of the producers, but the call-sheet had only been sent out at 11.45 the night before, long after Eddie had been tucked up in bed - unaware that he was wanted on set at 9.30 the next morning.

But incompetence at administration does not necessarily mean amateurism in art. The rushes looked good and I suspect this film will be of high quality. I look forward to seeing both the finished video and the outtakes from my contribution which will end up, I hope, on my intended showreel.