Home is where the art is. And I’ve habited some less than artful places. I lived in a luxury apartment with a Jacuzzi and sauna that was so pointlessly expensive that we’d sit in the spa reminiscing about sustenance. I stayed with an ambassador’s daughter whose house was an elegant rubbish tip of priceless artefacts. I resided next door to an elderly deaf man with a flair for casual racism and a penchant for rummaging through my bin bags. Now I’ve moved again, and I’m waiting for some domestic horror-bomb to drop. But every nook and cranny compliments my questionable personality perfectly. Its garden encourages contemplation like a perfectly rolled cigarette. Its bathroom has a corner-tub with a ledge for resting the complete works of Bernard Shaw and/or Calvin & Hobbes. Its bedroom captures the sun’s rising rays, gently ushering you to consciousness in the way an alarm clock should but never quite does. It’s the perfect home.However imperfect relatives may be, perfection, however, is relative. Whilst house-hunting I viewed somewhere billed as an artist’s retreat (retreating from the onset of a political atmosphere that will undermine and annihilate the arts, I suppose). I was greeted by a man wearing bright ivy-green, pointy purple shoes and a top hat with goggles. He led me on a tour, passing through a room full of fish-tanks where a man in a wetsuit struggled; a stairwell impasse hosting a slinky-racing tournament; and a man painstakingly making castles out of cakes. Eventually we emerged on a roof terrace where a young woman alternated wheatgrass and alcohol in an attempt to breathe fire more efficiently. As in, to ease her carbon footprint.

I’m not sure if your carbon footprint is of utmost concern when fire-eating’s your career of choice, but it certainly underlined that nothing beats a home for pure drama. You may even find that you’re at your most intriguing when pottering about the house (many drama school exercises play to this fact). Even Hollywood agrees, with Synecdoche, New York, in which a beleaguered theatre director receives an award that allows him to create a live, never-ending theatre production in an abandoned set of flats. Cue shameless rip-off for this week’s proto-venue.

There is a huge building by Rodney Street in Elephant & Castle, still awaiting demolition because a few residents refuse to sell up. Government ministers were vocal about utilizing abandoned, recession-punctured shops for the arts (well, they were when they were still in office), but what about the hundreds of houses and buildings lying unappropriated now? With 2012’s Olympic construction drive there will be many structures in transition. I’m compiling a list of buildings awaiting renovation that might play host to a sort of revolving rep through the under-developed districts of London. The cheerless dénouement of The Cherry Orchard would chime well with the dynamite and diggers outside.

And why didn’t I move in with the purple pointy-shoed fellow? Ah. I just wasn’t artsy enough for them. Touché. –>