Mr Turner at Cannes . . and a bit of eye trouble!

Mike Leigh's Mr Turner.

Do you know I used to love to go to Cannes; I can hear people say 'lucky for some' but it was one of those recreations that I jumped at; okay it was supposed to be work but I relished it; and I went four times for at least a week.

I was there to try and sell my short film as a TV pilot but it wasn't to be – or not to be!!

This week the Cannes Film Festival is taking place and it is a part of our business that some actors hate; well more fool them when they are sitting around in their dotage saying 'I could have . . .' or more likely 'I should have . . ' - personally I have no time for actors like that; actors are story tellers and meeting people – and the press and paparazzi – is all part of the job.

This year I would love to be there to see, what I think, will be an amazing film; I am talking about Mike Leigh's Mr Turner starring Timothy Spall. It's about the painter, of course, (JMW) and will probably win all the awards – from now on right up to the Oscars.

Mike Leigh is one of the great directors and his muse, Timothy Spall (who looks a lot like him; well the same type) fits in well with Leigh's filming technique.

I know this will fill some screen and TV writers with horror, but Leigh gets his actors to improvise as he devises his piece. That's what he does; even his classic stage play, Abigail's Party, was devised as an improvisation.

I am not talking about the improvisation you see on TV sometimes or the things they do at The Groundlings in Los Angeles but the kind you see Robert de Niro doing or Al Pacino. The building of a character through that technique.

I have worked on a short film for the BBC where we devised the film over a period of some days and improvised the dialogue. After a week or two of doing the same thing the improvised dialogue gets honed and shaped till we more or less know it without losing spontaneity; that is the secret as actors we are not reciting.

I have seen some of Ken Loach's films, who I also like a lot (but not as much as Mike Leigh's) and who is also at Cannes this year but the actors in his movies are not always professionals. Sometimes this works but they wouldn't be able to go through the process of devising and doing it over and over again.

I met Timothy Spall a year or so ago in Soho; I was having coffee with a pal and he poked his head around the coffee shop door and said 'what's going on here?'

He had come to see the owner of the place, as they had a gallery in the building, and he wanted to exhibit some of his work; so he can paint and I wish him, and the movie, a lot of luck.

Now then: since last week I have had a few emails and phone calls to see how I am after my surgery. Well I'm fine and really grateful for people's concern. It was an eye operation which was carried out using a local anesthetic (they just froze my eye).

The reason I didn't want a general anesthetic or sedation is 1): I don't think people of my age should 'go under' too much no matter how much of a thrill it is and 2): I wanted to find out what went on.

The surgery lasted two hours, which was longer than I thought, so I felt a little bit of discomfort – some pinching and stitching – but there was an amazing sensation at the end of surgery.

Because there were some tears I needed stitches and they put gas in to my eye (don't ask me why); this caused a bubble which temporarily blinded that eye.

I always thought that blindness would be dark; it isn't! It's dead – no sensation not brightness or darkness just dead. It was about a day before some kind of light came back.

The surgery was to straighten out a membrane on my retina rather like the skin on rice pudding or a fold in some Sellotape (Scotch tape in America).

That's all I want to say about it apart from what I see at the moment which is fascinating; the gas is still in my eye and it's slowly going.

At the bottom of my eye is the gas and as I walk it moves as if it's water – through a gold- fish bowl – I had to lay on the right side in bed and bow my head forward whenever I could for five days.

Now what I see is this:

See the gas at the bottom like a magnifying glass and the top being clear – ish! And when I walk the bottom moves so it's like walking through water - and that curve goes vertical when I lie down.

I took the photo through our sitting room window putting a close up mirror in front which is a good representation of what I see – and that's why I have to wear a patch.

Let's hope that by the next time I write Nigel Farage has been forgotten about; I live in hope.