To perhaps take our minds from the traumatic events happening around us each day during this time, I thought I would reminisce and talk about famous actors I’ve met and worked with.

And also address an article that appeared in the Independent where they spoke of the actor Michael Condron who’d been in Game of Thrones and was now, due to the lockdown, driving a van for a living.

The point is that we all do the things we feel we need to do in order to survive.

Being an actor - unless you are in the upper echelons of the industry - you will have many weeks and months without work, and this guy is no different, adapting to circumstances out of his control.

My personal view is that this isn’t a story and if it is, there’s plenty more where that came from.

Many actors I’ve worked with have had ‘other’ jobs from time to time - it’s a necessity to pay bills and mortgages.

For instance, I was in Oliver Twist, the BBC TV serial, with a stellar cast, and the actor playing Fagin was the brilliant stage and screen actor Eric Porter who, during filming, introduced me to the Oscar-nominated and true screen great, Omar Sharif, at a lunch break in the BBC canteen.

It’s the sort of thing I began to expect when working in such company.

But fast forward a year and I was working on a building site knocking up some muck in the front garden and I spotted a man sifting though our skip and shouted “Oi mate, what you doing?!”

He popped his head up and low and behold it was Eric Porter – apparently it was something he did between jobs, finding things, restoring and then selling them?

He recognized me instantly and remarked that he too used to do different jobs in his early years to give himself a regular income - there was no shame in that, and it comes with the territory.

I too have been in Game of Thrones - which by the way was probably one of the best experiences ever - but I also have had to find other work.

But fortunately work in collaboration with young aspiring actors in schools, so I can continue to keep being creative and at the same time hopefully give my experience and confidence in performance to others.

For me that is a win-win.

l This column contains extracts from David Garlick’s forthcoming memoir, My Eyes, How Green! Broadway Davey G