Tonight's the night

Well opening night tonight - eeek! It's been a very hectic few days, with rehearsals most evenings.

My chalices came out of the kiln successfully earlier in the week and have survived the sword fighting scene during recent evenings' practices. I'll try and take a photograph of them in action on the stage.

I'm not sure if there is a tradition of Pantomime in the USA, so to enlighten you, Wikipedia offers the following description:-

'Traditionally performed at Christmas, with family audiences, British pantomime is now a popular form of theatre, incorporating song, dance, buffoonery, slapstick, cross-dressing, in-jokes, audience participation, and mild innuendo.'




That will explain why dear Andy in this photograph, is dressed in such a fashion - he's a baddy, you always have evil baddies in pantomime - Crunchbones the Witchdoctor no less.

You always have a goody too, which is a male part, played by a woman. There's also always an old dame, that is played by a man - confused? Well there you go, see what you're missing over there across the pond?

I get wear a rather splendid tunic and Turkish fez on my head(of course Turks all wear Fezzes and we Brits all wear bowler hats don't you know) - I had to get my summer cut to make it fit properly, so now I feel a bit under dressed in the hair department for the current season - I do like to be hairy for the winter.

If you'd like to read more about the tradition, click here.

I'll try and get some pictures later, but these days it's become(absurdly) unacceptable to take photographs in places where there are children. Just five years ago, when I used to go to Joe's primary school productions, I was able to shoot video and take photographs at will and I have some lovely pictures of both my boys in their various productions, with their school chums. Now it seems we're all branded as paedophiles - ridiculous, this country drives me mad sometimes - ever wondered why I like to hide away in a shed in the middle of nowhere?


So to pottery.....


It's been another disrupted week with not a lot of pottery making going on, but the workshop's completely revolutionised. Yesterday I took Joey to have his braces fitted to his teeth, so he'll now not inherit his parents' lovely 'English smile'. He's been very good about it, braces seem to be much more common these days than when I was a nipper.

To prove I have been doing something however, here's a close up of a small sgrafitto jug that's been keeping me busy. I prefer not to put orders on here until the person who orders them has seen them first, hence the close up. I'll post the completed jug once it's found it's new owner.

The pot is to be taken to New Zealand to be given as a gift to an ex-pat, who misses the primroses and robins of England. The jug has a robin on the other side, some oak leaves and acorns, dog roses and snowdrops - an English season depicted on each panel.

Over the next few months, I'm going to make a series of four jugs, each inspired by the individual seasons in the Devon countryside - I'm looking forward to that.

Well, the smell of grease paint, the lights, the stage, the excited anticipation of the audience await me, so I must now away, to the romantic city of Constantinople, where Sinbad the Sailor is to defeat the wicked Crunchbones and the Great and Good Caliph is to marry the Princess Pearl - Oh, and I'm to make a right plonker of myself in front of the whole village - HELP!!!!