Sunday, January 27, 2008

Amongst other things

Well, it's called 'Isa Fidler Coach Tours' and rehearsals start again tonight. (There have been a couple of days of inactivity while the hall was otherwise engaged.)

Dismantling the scenery was a useful exercise. Each group has to stage a performance lasting no longer than 30 minutes, including the time to get scenery on and off stage. A glimpse at the robust, complicated structure that Chirbury and Marton have devised suggests that we might have problems here as the play itself is slightly over 20 minutes in length. On the first practice it took a scary and chaotic 4½ minutes to take down. Scaffolding poles, heavy wooden boards and Young Farmers were flying in all directions - I think we need hard hats. Second time round they'd improved this to 3½ minutes and nobody had suffered too much bruising. It goes up again tonight and they are looking to improve on the 6 minutes it takes to create a double decker bus out of a pile of wood and some metal poles.

Last night Marton celebrated the birth of Rabbie Burns in the accustomed manner. That the speeches and toasts had a very definite Welsh lilt didn't matter at all.

With whisky sipped and supped the Hall's foundations were shaken by some very vigourous country dancing. The floor bounced alarmingly.

Here our piper, a local man, prepares to pipe in the haggis. It was a lively creature and loathe to stay on the plate - though I imagine that if you knew your fate was to be an encounter with a Sgian Dubh, you too would be making a bid for freedom.

Anyway, no peace for the wicked. Rehearsals beckon.

1 comment:

snailbeachshepherdess said...

You be careful leaping about on that floor ...I thought it was in dire need of replacing? Is that a haggis on that plate?