It'll be alright on the night...

..was my mantra for the week (or two) leading up to yesterday evening. Not that it destressed me much, when it came to it. I was a ball of emotions right up until they started handing out the starter. And the wine. (Just a sip you understand.)

So, I guess I'd better apologise before I get very far into this. It's very nearly a month since I last updated. I think I forgot that I even had this blog (maybe I have to look at it to remember :-P) So sorry, dear friends and any others. Also, thank you again for all the love and support you've shown me. It's rather lovely :-)

Anywho, yesterday was THE night. The one I've been 'working' towards since I arrived. Apparently, it was quite good. The main reason for that is probably Jan Colcutt, since she put in an enormous amount of work. Including agreeing to be in a floundering sketch at very late notice. So thank you Jan. And thank you also for your support and encouragement.

Unfortunately, I lost pretty much half my performers - and thus had to pull half of the performances - in the last two weeks or so. Reasons ranged from broken vertebrae whilst skiing, misscommunication/lack of and rearranged holidays. So I found myself in a position 10 mins before the evening was officially supposed to start, attempting to reteach one sketch - originally rehearsed for 8 people - to one boy. Needless to say, I gave up. I think that was a turning point in my evening. I went to tell Jan that I'd had to pull yet another sketch and on my way back into the main room took a look at the people milling around. If you can call it that. Typically, people had read '18.30 start' as '19.30 start', and we are in France, so that doesn't even mean that they'd be there at 19.30. So at my most frustrated of the evening (I'd attempted to speak to the aforementioned boy in English I was so frazzled) I saw the people sitting, not touching the apperatif and generally looking disinterested as a great personal insult.
"No!" I hear you shout. "Don't be so silly." And is that a "Not everything's about you!" at the back there? Well I had to have a mini breakdown at somepoint, or I wouldn't be me. Once I'd got over that (thank you Jan again), and forced myself to start playing ze flute as background music, I could concentrate on showing off the talent God's given to the people in this church.

For example, we did this skit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyheJ480LYA I'd showed it to a few people, and they seemed quite excited about doing it. Rehearsals (and having enough actors wise) however, was not so exciting. In fact it was rather scary. We learnt it on the day. And were lacking two characters, even in the performance. Somebody told me today the she wanted to cry. Which if you've seen the sketch, is the desired effect. In fact this morning we did again, and gained the two missing characters from two lovely ladies who'd seen it the previous evening! Although the music didn't quite work properly (I was the only one who could make out the cues, and thus had to subtley (for me) cue everyone in), it seemed to go quite well again :-)

An evening like this would have probably - nay, definitely - been much easier in England. I think that's due to the fact that I think people are much more used to that sort of thing in the UK. Here it's an almost completely new concept. The church has done things in the past, and has a Christmas show, but I get the feeling that people aren't hugely enthusiastic about it, or at least not confident enough to throw themselves into it. In Redhill, we have the luxury of knowing that most people will probably enjoy it.

Saying that, however, the church here really suprised me. Yesterday (after I'd put my acting mindset on and just got on with it) was one of the most fun evenings I've had. It was, in a beautifully French way framed by food. 4-5 courses worth of framing. Incidentally, I made eton mess for 12 and I'm pretty sure there was a bit of 5 loaves, 2 fish miracle work going on there. That is to say, it went down pretty well. Dessert is something I can praise English cuisine on, even if I flounder for much else. (Before you jump down my throat for that, I love English food. When French people ask me outright 'Do you like French cooking? Is it better than English? What's special about English food' it's quite difficult to answer. Our main meals tend to be rather plain, at least in comparison. Come up with a good answer, in French, in 5 seconds. Go on, I dare you.)

I was also taken aback at the appreciation showed for the different performances. Jan and I recieved flowers (Lovely lovely flowers :-)) But praise is also due elsewhere. I felt it was important after each sketch to go and genuinely thank the actors for their good job, because they deserved it. If I'm glad I did one thing in these three months, it was that. Making sure that everybody knows how important they are seemed vital, and I'm glad that I remembered to do it.

Of course, the evening didn't go perfectly. In addition to my shaky start, there were a few performance mishaps, but that's fine. In fact, my biggest one seemed to provide the biggest laugh. That maybe definitely is because I knew I was about to fail on my lines and thus hammed up reaching for my script as much as I could. :-) One of my favourtie sketches that we do in England is 'The Gift' (ask for details). It always gets laughs, and is simple to understand, both for the actors and audience. Here, however, it got very few laughs and even teaching it was a little difficult. It's little things like that which remind me how different the French mindset is, despite our countries being so close in other ways.

I shall leave this enourmous post with one last comment, and then I should probably go to bed before I fall asleep on my keyboard. I was invited out to lunch today, and around the table there was a lot of talk of the evening - and the two sketches we did this morning. I didn't have very much to do with these conversations at all. At one point someone pretty much (with help from others) recited word for word a sketch that they found particularly funny. It wasn't one which I was in, which I loved though I'd loosely given some direction and my dad had written it.(Halo/Aureole for those in the know.) The point is, at the end of the (rather hilarious retelling) everyone who'd seen it explained its message. Rather better than I could have. And I get the feeling people are going to be retelling for quite a while. I hope that they can get the confidence to do their own shows, and invite friends. So that I can come and visit, watch, eat, enjoy and then go home and retell - word for word - to all of you.

I shall endeavour to write another post tomorrow ("So soon?!" I hear you exclaim) in a less self indulgent manner. Until then, Happy Easter - Jésus est ressuscité!

xxx