A Very Windy Arnaud!!

Bathroom humor, fart, and poo poo humor in movies gets a laugh. It's a pretty easy audience, and that's been around for ages. {Selma Blair}

The past couple of posts have been a little jumbled, time wise due to a bit of a backlog.  From here though we return to a chronological order starting from Monday 23rd December.

More mischief has hit the village of Stoneybroke.  And this time it's the other sister, Kit Hesketh Harvey, that's been at the root of it.  Firstly I should explain, that Kit is a very dry, extremely intelligent and instantly quick witted performer, who is very hard to throw of course when it comes to corpsing.  So, when you do manage to shake him, you have to jump on it and revel in success.  But be warned... He will seek vengeance!

We're back in the woods for the ghost gag! and from the off things are on a downwards spiral.  At the end of their number in the previous scene, I could see that kit' swig was on the wobble.  On their entrance to the woods PG obviously had the same thought and burst into a fit of giggles at the beehive wig that was now resting horizontally. 

"Ladies... There's nothing to be scared of... Except your wig!" I said as PG tried to sort it out for Kit.  As the wig popped upright I said to Kit, "oh, you've had a little blue pill!"  He was by now laughing at his own expense, and stuttered over his line "ha ha ha ha Hardup hall."  Me and PG's jumped on it mocking the stutter, but our joy was short lived, within the space of two minutes we'd both (probably through lack of concentration) mucked a line or word up and Kit was there.... Ready to remind us of his ability.

But that wasn't the only problem for Kitty, that day.  In the next performance, in the kitchen scene, Kitty stamps her foot to kill an insect, which had been done every show since the tech.  No wonder then that the heel would eventually come flying off mid scene, leading to another Kit corpse and a wobbly sister, hobbling around stage.  When Cinders tells Buttons that the sisters have some "Lelly Kelly shoes" I questioned, "they haven't got heels on have they, she might need them!"

The funniest moment however was not an actor error but a sound error.  Due to a change in our 'liveracne' routine, we had to remove three flatulence sound FX, each one getting longer and louder.  Chris Tindall, sound 1, deleted the sound FX from the playlist and thought all was well.   technology however should never, fully, be trusted.  

We're mid ball scene, Cinders and the Prince have just come face to face for the second time and are looking lovingly into each other's eyes.  As scripted, a freeze frame from the entire cast on stage and a voice over warning from fairy snow about leaving before midnight.  So all was going as predicted, the cast froze and waited for Bonnie's voice to fill the auditorium as Tom and Alice gazed into each other's eyes - smitten!

Instead. "thrrrrp!"  It was very faint and quite quiet but it was there all the same.  A small leakage of gas filled the ballroom.  I was in my dressing room, but on hearing this over the relay, knew something was amiss and ran down to prompt corner.  The actors on stage all had a slight smirk, through the shock but tried in earnest to carry on and remain in character.

Meanwhile at the sound desk, Mr Tindall is obviously baffled!!  How has this sound effect got back into the cue list?  In a state of panic and trying to find the right cue he fast forward the list two tracks, but as I mentioned, there were originally three windy SFX.  Barely managing to keep a straight face as it is, the entire cast and audience burst into a fit of laughter as a second, much louder and much longer noise graced the stage... " THRRRRRRRRRRRPPPPPPPPPPPPP!" There was no escaping it!  The Prince wafted his hand at Cinderella... Maybe it wasn't only her ponies with 'issues'.

Everyone was in hysterics.  We couldn't stop laughing about it.  I went down for my entrance into the woods a few minutes later and Will (Dandini) was still doubled over.  It carried on further into our favourite (and now recognisably I'll-fated) ghost gag scene.  We were struggling to get the words out through four titters, but we plowed on.  Cue another ghostly sound effect.  Nothing.  Chris was now in such a panic over what had happened he hurriedly tried to figure out what had happened and how to fix it - this distraction however meant he missed the next cue.

"Well!" I said to the audience "we were expecting a sound effect there ladies and gentlemen!!  I just hope it's the right one this time. Thrrrrrrrrrrrp!"  My ad-libed raspberry triggered more laughter from the audience and of course PG!!! Who was now laughing so hard he was letting out a half squeal, which in turn set myself and Kit off.  "This show's going really well isn't it!" I asked them on stage.

The rain outside had now reached storm level; Very heavy rain and strong gusting winds.  I decided to move my car the night before Christmas Eve, as I needed to pop to Tesco to pick up the Xmas cheese and I didn't want my car to be stuck at the top of a steep hill if the weather worsened.  There were already trees and branches down and water was pooling everywhere.

Following my shopping trip Is at on the bed in my loft room digs, unable to hear the TV over the storm. Suddenly, thunder... Never heard by myself on Christmas Eve... Had the mynas got their year wrong?!  I find the noise of a storm quite relaxing, but little did I know what situation would be waiting for us the following morning!!  This was going to be a Christmas Eve to remember....

To be continued...

JB - BB