Pantomime season (Oh yes it is!)

We had the first read-through yesterday for the Bursledon Player's next production - Sinbad the Sailor and Mystery Island. Just about the right amount of young people turned up - not so many that it would have meant turning people down (or having an enormous chorus), but not too few, so I'm not going to have to ring round last year's cast who didn't come back yesterday and plead with them. This year I'm co-writing it with Rachel again; she does the jokes and I do the plot - except for the sections where she does the jokes and the plot and I just write it down.

I have to say I do like writing pantomime - I can have lots of fun finding different ways to use the traditional characters, and I just love the feeling when I think of a line that seems like it doesn't add much, but is going to be a serious bit of plot three scenes later.

Now I need to get it finished and off to the actors asap, so that they can start learning their lines. Maybe next year I'll have more than Act 1 written before auditions. Maybe.

The 12 days of training

I'd like to apologise publicly for my singing on this; I'm sorry, I couldn't help joining in.

And the winner is...

Bursledon Players have decided that they will submit my short play, And the winner is..., to Totton Drama Festival. I'll be directing it. We had a casting session last Thursday which was markedly under-attended, leaving me needing to phone people and appeal for them to please take on a part. I've also said that I will direct that play and one or two other short plays for the April Bursledon Players production.

Friday tired

4.30 on Friday - time to go home, put feet up and relax for the weekend. Or not, as the case may be. Bursledon Players have their next production coming up (directed yet again by me) - tickets available here - so tomorrow is set building all day, then technical rehearsal all Sunday afternoon. Yet again I've had to ask the ever-helpful Mike Andrews at Lite Relief if we can have lights etc at short notice - to his credit, when I asked him on a Friday evening as he was driving back from a job in Oxford, he promised to see me at the warehouse at 9.30 on Saturday morning. I'm out praying with John tonight, it's Cathy's birthday party tomorrow evening (a masked ball for which I don't yet have a mask), and what with church Sunday morning (plus Celebration in the evening) and going to the Fox and Hounds quiz, I'm wondering when on earth I'm going to get the usual 5+ loads of washing done so that children have clean school uniforms etc. I'll be shattered by Monday.

Now I know that this is all voluntary and mostly pleasurable, and that there are a lot of people who don't have leisure time to anywhere near the extent that I do, but nonetheless it's not a great feeling to be finishing work for the week, feeling tired, and knowing that it's going to be non-stop until Monday when I'm back at work again (and giving a presentation on the Local Government White Paper that I haven't even thought about yet).