On With The Show

 

It was because of the drama ambitious nature of one of our younger members that the helper staff embarked on an annual entertainment spot at our holiday projects.  Michelle had always had a ‘yen’ for a life on the stage and it was among our small group that she exploited her enthusiasm and inspired among the rest of us the idea of our own show.  Michelle persuaded the entertainment team at the Camp to relinquish half-an-hour of the time during the final evening at the Camp but she under-estimated the acumen and professionalism of the regular entertainers.  Two items captured the interest of the inattentive audience; the first was a slapstick performance relying exclusively on mime and the second a really excellent solo in a beautiful contralto voice by another of our younger helpers.  The rest of the items, with dialogue and repartee, fell flat since no-one was interested enough to listen to us while they had something urgent to say to buddies sitting with them.  So we learned.  Our performances had to be visual or so exceptionally well-performed that the interest could be captured in the first few seconds.

 

But our shows have continued each year.  Mostly it is thrown together without rehearsal and relies, to a great extent, on the spontaneity of the performers.

 

One particularly successful effort was our ballet show.  All our ‘boys’ were good, hefty types capable of lifting and pushing our heavy guests and displayed bulging muscles on legs and arms, often covered by a luxurious growth of black hair.  Anything less like a troupe of ballet dancers would be difficult to envisage.  But ballet dancers they became.  Dressed in blond curly wigs, dark tee-shirts and some of our spare ‘long-johns’ with a minute frilly tutu around the middle, they entered the ballroom on the tips of size ten feet and pirouetted across the polished floor with the grace of a herd of hippos.  The audience sat for a second or two, astonished into silence; their usual recognition of familiar faces deceived by the disconcerting disguise.  But this was quickly succeeded by jubilant mirth as the identity of the dancers was confirmed.  The twirling figures, their hairy arms raised in graceful abandon, slithered into each other, knocking awry curly tresses and bulging bosoms.  For some minutes this display continued, amid convulsed merriment.  Then, from the back of the stage, the door opened and in came the ballerina.  Tall, think and knobbly, he twirled across to the front and braced himself for his leap to join his company on the ballroom floor.  He waited until his ‘partner’, a short, stocky individual about the shape of a Toby Jug, came along beneath and he jumped to land into the outstretched arms.  Both landed on the floor; curly wigs came off; false curves erupted unable to avoid the tumbling heap, fell over and on the tangle of arms and legs.  As each regained his feet, helpful hands took hold of the two squashed bodies at the bottom of the pile and dragged them off through the door, amid the applause and enthusiasm of the ranked audience.

 

Then there was Ward 10½.  The boys squeezed themselves into all manner of garments, which might, with a degree of imagination, look like uniforms.  Matron, with a vast envelope of white flowing from his head, armed himself with a whip in order to maintain discipline.  The girls, patients every one, were dragged in across the polished floor, on mattresses and the hospital activity began.  The first had her tonsils removed and, after being held down by the restraining arms and legs of the nursing staff, the doctor held up two sausage tonsils in an enormous pair of tongs.  By this time, the rest of the alarmed patients were sliding off their beds and creeping unobtrusively towards the door, their long nighties trailing behind them.  Matron turned triumphantly from the ‘operation’, and saw the rest of her ward occupants disappearing through the various exits.  With a yell of dismay, she began a round of rescue, flailing her whip to good effect and driving her reluctant patients back to their mattresses.

 

The second operation was to remove a varicose vein from the leg of one of the girls.  Some searching took place under the long nightie and out came a long, red ‘vein’ --- yards and yards of it.  Gleefully, the exuberant nurses pulled until the trail of scarlet entwined their necks, their legs and began to get around the chairs and forms of the startled audience.

 

Other shows which were concocted from between the fertile brains of our talented ‘staff’ were the shot-gun wedding, with the bride producing quadruplets in the vestry immediately after the ceremony.  Prince Charles would have been astonished to have seen the rehearsal of his wedding just weeks before the official affair.  The Caliph of Baghdad gave a review of his preparations for the night when he selected his wives from among his harem.  But even the most virile Caliph could not expect to cope with more than two or three wives in one night so the rest of the girls, their eyes glowering above their concealing yashmaks, flounced off round the ballroom to find another more welcoming male each to comfort them.  The eunuch, armed with a broad silver weapon with a curved blade, was sent to bring back the offending ‘wives’ who, exasperated beyond patience, turned on their resplendent husbands and dragged them off.

 

None of the sketches by our ‘angels’ lasted more than about ten minutes but had it been omitted from the programme at one of the evening’s entertainments, there would have been disappointed criticism.