I treated myself to an acting workshop for my birthday. It was a bit of a random choice, but I’ve found myself stuttering more since I got Parkinsons disease and I thought it might help my concentration and confidence.

Luckily some of my friends were also there which made me feel less anxious. We started out being given various exercises. First we had to look at someone in a large circle of people and then point at them. The person had to say ‘yes’ which gave the person pointing permission to walk over to them. In the meantime that person had to point to someone new, be acknowledged with a yes and then move on.

It wasn’t complicated, but it was hard to get your head round. It’s hard to just explain it. A few people said yes and started moving themselves instead of waiting for the other person to move. We eventually went on to counting, so it was like a moving conversation with numbers instead of words. Confusing for some, and hard not to make mistakes.

At the half way point we were given short pieces of dialogue. We were then split into groups of two and asked to read through the scripts and pick out concrete facts, not opinions. So you could say those facts could ground the performance, whilst opinions in the scripts could change how you felt about your partners character.

The whole workshop showed how important listening and reacting to another actor is. I don’t know if it helped my confidence but I have to say I enjoyed it. It was run by Claybody Theatre, based at the Dipping House, at Spode Works, Stoke, Stoke-on-Trent.