Can I be funny?

I actually wrote some 3 minute plays for the Titchy Theatre at the weekend.

One was based on Samuel Becketts “Waiting for Godot”, but my version was “Waiting for Gordon”.

The idea was that two cooks are standing outside the village hall waiting for Gordon Ramsey to come and judge a cookery competition.

First they see a man walking up the hill, but it can’t be Gordon as he’s wearing a cowboy hat and carrying a guitar. The contestants realise it’s a local man and that guitars are not cookery implements, those are called banjos!

Then they see someone else, but although he’s carrying a suitcase and has blond hair and looks like Gordon, he goes into a local bed and breakfast hotel and is not the famous chef.

One of them confesses that they are not sure if Gordon is coming today or tomorrow and cannot check as they don’t have Gordon’s agents phone number.

Finally they ask what time it is and realise that their pavlova will be ruined and their Victoria sponge will be burnt. The final line is “oh well, we will have to come back tomorrow!”

I actually got a few laughs (the script was better that the explanation, and the actors helped make it funnier!)

Singing

Do you sing for pleasure, to earn money, to learn something new? Or for mental or physical health?

Singing is good for lung health. It can strengthen both your lungs, chest muscles and help improve your voice. It helps with breathing and can help control your worries. I’ve found it helpful with controlling anxiety. It doesn’t cure it, but it calms it. Yes you could get stage fright, but singing with a choir helps because you are singing with others and that supports all the participants. You learn together and grow together. After about 20 years of singing with the group we sound pretty good. New people join and the group changes, but we all enjoy going or we wouldn’t be there

Some songs are earworms, rolling round and round in your head. Others are hard to pick up. We sometimes drop a tone or sing flat. It’s hard as a low singer to hit the high notes. Some songs are really annoying, but others in the group love them. But as we are all different then we all like a variety of music. Participating is good for you. I’d recommend it to anyone.

Performance

Play under a gazebo, Titchy Theatre. We had a good attendance and people seemed to enjoy the small, two page playlets. We had a variety of performances, one play imagined life as an elevator where different floors matched with ages of life and what people do then. Like childhood, aging, and even death. Another was about memories of tandem riding, and various memories of the riders, a third about a noisy neighbour. It was really good to see people’s thoughts down on paper, and the actors enjoyed doing it despite only seeing the scripts about an hour before the performance.

Japanese food

Bento box at a local Japanese restaurant. It was my birthday treat today. I like how the various types of food are held in compartments so you can mix and match flavours. You chose when main meat or vegetarian portion and the bento comes with rice, salad, sliced pickled ginger, goyoza, sushi, all very tasty. I had roast duck with Teriyaki sauce as my main choice. It was very pleasant sharing the evening with friends and putting worries to the back of my mind.

Small abstract

Small abstract swirling wave pattern I gifted to someone last year. She has it on display. I don’t remember it being so metallic but it may be the lighting she has used.

I had some modelling paste that I used to build up the surface and make an impasto effect before painting over it. I guess it could crack if it was bumped or knocked. I do love experimenting.

Mystery?

For several years I was involved in a local community group that produced the Penkhull mystery plays. I was impressed by how the group wrote stories from scratch, made props like this green face, and organised music and stalls alongside the plays to make a wonderful mix of fun and theater for a local audience. I was  sometimes involved, helping paint scenery and took small parts in the plays.

Sadly the Pandemic stopped all of this and it’s taken a few years to try and come up with New Mysteries. Firstly we are putting on a small theatre performance called Harpers Titchy Theatre, with 3 minute plays, a few stalls and hopefully some music. The plan is that if this works we can put on a 20th anniversary year Penkhull Mystery Play in 2025. Wish us luck (or a broken leg)!