How was your weekend?

I am not a brave man.

Family stories record the tears I shed whenever Andy Pandy or Robinson Crusoe ended on television. But I wasn't frightened by things that traditionally scared children my age either. I knew Dr. Who was fantasy and my childish nightmares - I later discovered - had more in common with early David Lynch films than the traditional "monsters in the cupboard" which send most children racing downstairs thirty minutes after being tucked up in bed.

No, there was only one programme that saw me in the tiny space between the wall and the sofa, refusing to watch. That was the episode of Mary, Mungo and Midge where Mary broke her arm and had to go to hospital.

Fear
Now I'm not scared of hospitals. Or doctors. Or injections. But I've never had to stay overnight in a hospital. Or undergo surgery. Or, since breaking my collarbone at the age of 18 months, have a bone reset. Obviously there are advantages to not using your bed as a trampoline and I learned that lesson early on.

Suddenly, thirty eight and a half years later, I am in an ambulance being raced to Addenbrokes Hospital with suspected appendicitis and I am feeling more than a little anxious.

Pain
There was a definite point where I realised my May Day Bank Holiday Weekend might be subject to some variability. It wasn't when the stomach cramps started - I thought that was merely some food poisoning (my sincere apologies to my 6th floor colleagues who I mentally slandered for poor hygiene because of the Chocoloate Hobnob which I mistakenly ascribed my discomfort to).

It wasn't when I was asked to move upstairs because I was keeping my partner awake through my inability to sleep.

It was probably when I collapsed on the floor of the bathroom early the following morning, awoke amid various broken household items, a doctor was called and an ambulance sent for.

In Addenbrookes Hospital there is no sofa and nowhere to hide. I have no choice but to go with the flow. Everywhere I go I answer the same questions to different people. I try to maintain my wits in an effort to avoid being subjected to a different procedure and prolonged agony. After being poked and prodded ever more intimately, I arrive in anaesthesia in late afternoon to say the same things one more time. No, I don't smoke. Yes I drink about 5-10 units a week on average. No, I don't have any alleriges. The anaesthesiologist tells me I'll be asleep within 10 seconds... and suddenly I'm waking up as I'm wheeled into Recovery, though how anyone is supposed to recover in this place which has the air of a sweatshop I have no idea. I haven't seen the inside of the theatre or even encountered the machine that goes "ping" which is slightly disappointing.

Visitors
I'm barely in the mood for visitors, but my family turn up anyway. My father attempts to give me a friendly clap on the shoulder and upends my beaker of water over the bed. Thank goodness I haven't begun filling the line of bottles next to it, I think to myself as my mother observes: "it's like being visited my M. Hulot!"

My family mistake my resignation - and the effects of anaesthetic and morphine - for bravery. My father tells me Orient beat Bristol Rovers 3-1 and furthers my incredulity with the news that Nottingham Forest have achieved automatic promotion. I should've done that away trip last season.

Parole
Two days pass in a blur. A nurse offers me a packaged sandwich which I manage to eat half of, washing it down with water. Either not eating for 24 hours has made me forget to swallow or I've been on some drug to stop me salivating. I later read that Addenbrokes food was voted 97th out of 160 similar establishments. That seems... high. I ask for all the morphine I can get. It has a strong, sweet taste and I can imagine becoming addictied to it easily.

By morning I'm ravenous but dizzy and a nurse says I have to get up. Lacking confidence, I ask for a wheelchair to visit the toilet. I improve steadily and late in the d ay I manage to shuffle slowly to the toilet under my own steam. Within 24 hours I'll be out, not because I'm recovered but because they need the bed. It'll be two weeks before I'm approaching something like normality. This leaves me with the vague feeling that I'm not so much a customer of the service as the product.

I'm still not a fan of surgery.

Straight8 Teaser

Straight8 have released a teaser for this year's competition featuring half a second from each of the 175 films submitted.

You can see a shot from my entry, "Little Russia, CB1" at 0:57, an external shot of the Moving Pictures tattoo parlour on Mill Road, Cambridge:

Please allow me to introduce myself...

I'm preparing for a couple of virtual team workshops in Prague and South Africa in the coming weeks.

Members of teams and communities need to begin to trust each other quickly. A great way to start is by learning everyone's name. Psychologists say to learn a person's name, you should use it three times in conversation as soon as you meet them. This is difficult with a roomful of people, so you need a way of making people repeat their names.

Here are some warm-up exercises I learned from the in situ: theatre group’s Learn To Act course.

Introduce Yourself
Invite the members of the group to walk around the space and introduce themselves to each other. Ask them to greet each other as they meet – "Hello, my name is Richard" – even when they meet someone for the second or third time.

No one would introduce themselves three times to the same person, but by giving the group permission to act in this way, you increase the chance of them remembering names. Lead by example and no one will question this or call it unrealistic.

Allow this exercise to run for 2-3 minutes or until everyone has met everyone else 3-4 times.

Introduction Circle
Form a circle and ask everyone to introduce themselves to the rest of the group, saying, for example, "My name is Richard."

Tell everyone to find a new place in the circle and go around the circle with everyone introducing the person to the left of them: "This is Andrew." (Tell them to check the person's name beforehand if they've forgotten!)

Tell everyone to find a new place in the circle and go around the circle with everyone introducing the person to the right of them: "This is Suzanne."

Ball Circle
Introduce a ball into the circle. Choose a person, call their name and throw them the ball. They repeat this. Continue for 2-3 minutes.

Break the circle and ask everyone to walk around the space, throwing the ball between them and calling the name of the recipient as they do. Continue for 2-3 minutes.

Simple exercises like this help to breakdown barriers from the start and encourage people to get to know each other.

Facilitators should always participate - it saves resorting to sticky labels..!

Extra lines

An extra session for the vaudevillians tonight, though one of the number is excluded through some confusion about the meaning of "next Thursday".

We go through the pastoral scene a couple of times, slowly with some direction, then running through as it will be performed. It's quite long at 20 minutes, a significant part of the play. Fortunately there's a lot of fun in it, even when it's only exposition for the audience - much raising of eye-brows and scratching of chins.

My ideas for a costume for the vaudeville Polixenes achieve... some surprise at the amount of thought I've given it.

Well, what else do people do on train journeys?!?

Complications in the Black Forest

The Winter's Tale - Term 3, Week 3

It's not only light when I arrive this evening, it's warm too. The streets are full because Cambridge United are playing their final home league game of the season and a win against rivals Torquay United will secure a play-off place for them. Two loud cheers shortly before 8:30pm indicate they may have achieved their goal.

Meanwhile, inside the Leper Chapel, another brainstorm leads us to focus on choreography this evening. "A Walk In The Black Forest" is no longer the preserve of the "vaudevillians" and has now become an ensemble piece with everybody jumping in and out at different times! It will require some work to get right, but it's shaping up to be fun.

The rest of the time is spent on the pastoral scene with Polixenes, Camillo, Perdita, Florizel and the old shepherd. It points to a lot more work needing to be done to learn lines.

Apparently part of the script is missing from the wiki, so I promise to add it.

The Method and The Tale

The Winter's Tale - Term 3, Week 2

Tonight we concentrated the part between Screaming Jay Hawkins' "I Put A Spell On You" and Bobby Darin's "Take Good Care Of My Baby".

The focus is now on creating a performance. There was a brief discussion on internalisation and Method acting and some experimentation with the game "It's Tuesday" (actors in neutral, director announces "It's Tuesday", actors respond with an extreme version of a chosen emotion). The subsequent performance was greatly improved. Still need to work on those lines though.

The wiki is working! People have accessed it and amended the text, although no one has turned up with a printed version yet. I'm planning to have a complete version which I can personalise with a format with highlights my own lines.

The lines that currently get the most laughs:

LEONTES:
A gross hag
And, lozel, thou art worthy to be hang'd,
That wilt not stay her tongue.

ANTIGONUS:
Hang all the husbands
That cannot do that feat, you'll leave yourself
Hardly one subject.

Social Media Meets Experimental Theatre

The Winter's Tale Term 3, Week 1

A run through with books for timing brought us in at around 1 hour and 50 minutes, as well as showing how much more work we need to do learning lines.

Everyone is still working out of annotated books, so perhaps it's time to share the script on-line somewhere. I'll suggest starting a wiki - but I'm not going to call it that..!