High drama

I suppose I ought to deal with the picture first, since that is bound to attract attention.  First of all, I am fine.  Not entirely fine, as I have a stiff knee and a bandaged wrist, in addition to the bits you can see (I have no idea how bad my face is, because they  bandaged it up, but there was a lot of blood, so that was probably necessary.  I was coming out of the school, you see, after a most successful day, saw my car and moved quickly to it… and tripped over the bottom bar of the opening in the gate.  Took a flier, hit the pavement with knee, wrist, face, more or less in that order.

Despite my protestations, I was whisked off to hospital – incredibly modern – and was dealt with straight away.  It took a while, of course – the usual tests, a tetanus jab, various cleanings-up, and then a multitude of bandages.  A slight over-abundance of caution, I would say, but he was doing his job (or rather, two people were doing his job, as he had an assistant to cut the tape) but after about an hour, I was sent on my way, with a bagful of medicines.

So, apart from the huge embarrassment, and the way I look (Mary told me her daddy had become a mummy) all is well.

The other high drama of the day was my three workshops.  I began with my cast, of whom about 34 were there.  My major task was to learn their names, so after an introduction, we played a couple of name games, before I tried out a couple of exercises which were  more theatrical in nature: Granma’s footsteps as a cavalcade of zombies, and then a short scene about inanimate objects – statues, shop dummies, and in one inspired choice, puppets.  Not all of the scenes were wonderful, but first of all there is some real talent there, and secondly I think they mostly  very much enjoyed themselves.

And then my INSET classes for Drama, with two sets of teachers, in both cases with just two men.  Today was all about the various questions – why, what, where, how – attached to Drama, and then the beginning of practical approaches, starting with warm-ups and games.  I was mildly concerned that they might struggle to join in, with quite a few not as young or mobile as they used to be.  But actually, this was not at all a problem.  They participated, if anything, with even more enthusiasm than the youngsters had displayed.  And I know they enjoyed it, because they told me so.

It had been a most successful day.  And then…

Still, lessons tomorrow.