All work and no play (well, panto)

The last couple of nights I've woken up worrying about the panto - nothing major going wrong, but I'm very aware that there's a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that needs to happen, and that it's down to me to make sure it does. Unfortunately at the moment I seem to be pretty bad at prioritising my time, so that I never get past the 'Urgent do it NOW' stuff that keeps the household running, and the 'Important do it soon' stuff gets put off again and again and again...

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.