A couple of years ago J, K and L did a workshop in the holidays where they prepared a shortened version of Oliver! and they really enjoyed it. This year the opportunity came up to do a similar workshop just down the road from here, this time based on Matilda the Musical, so we booked places straightaway, as it promised to be very popular. This was before we knew that 6 would be coming; we had four places booked and knew that the workshop had been full for some time so it was with some trepidation that I approached the organiser to ask if there was any chance of squeezing another person in. Fortunately she said yes, even though it meant 21 children instead of the planned 20, so our plan b of finding something else for J to do was not needed.
Our daily routine for the past week has accordingly been that I would walk the children down the road to drama school and leave them there with packed lunch, indoor shoes and lots of drinks while I walked back and had a useful day catching up on emails, sorting through boxes which have been sitting in the workshop for a shamefully long time waiting to be sorted, restarting the 40 bags in 40 days challenge which I didn’t manage to finish in the Spring (hate ME relapses) and resting lots to recover from all that activity. Meanwhile, the children were kept busy learning lines, songs and choreography as well as playing lots of drama games. It’s been a poor week for music practice as they were so tired by the time they got home that reading through their lines for the next day and eating tea was about all they could manage before collapsing in front of a film or heading straight to bed 😀
On Saturday Bob and I went along to see the result of all that hard work in the form of a short show (about 45 minutes) which told an abridged version of the story and included a few of the best-known songs. They were very good 🙂 6 and J were both narrators (the role was split between 4 children in total) and both word-perfect with their lines, K was Bruce Bogtrotter, with a pillow down his shirt and a solo starting off “When I grow up”, L, overcoming a serious case of nerves, was the young Matilda (sharing the role with an older girl who took over once Matilda started school) so also had a solo for the start of “Naughty” and A had lines including “Pick up your hockey stick and use it as a sword!” and “My Daddy says I’m a princess” which she performed with great aplomb.
They’re now all keen to do more musical theatre…. we just need a few more days in the week and a few more pennies in the purse 😉
