Why not pour yourself a cold drink and escape this sweltering weather for a moment to sit in the cool and read the latest ETC news starting with a great blog from Chris……
Party Pieces A now traditional summer get-together, eagerly looked forward to by us all; members, family and friends alike. A beautiful, sunny and warm afternoon saw us all lounging on Phil’s lovely patio with the Pyrenees reflected in the shimmering surface of his immaculate swimming pool. We’d almost rehearsed our little individual sketches but, forgoing our usual professional approach to line learning, none of us were really bothered if we knew the lines or not. And, as nobody knew what was coming next, none of us knew when some improvisation happened along the way.
The tone was set by Ian, who appeared as “Mrs Mopp”, a comical music critic who put Tim’s piano playing to a severe test. We almost died laughing – so Maggie further amused us by giving us some of her reflections on what it may actually feel like to be dead, in a box, in the dark. So thus, in the dark, our resident Scotsman regaled us with his version of a Rabbie Burns’ classic “Tae a mouse” – a rather rude version called “Tae a Fart” – the result of eating too much haggis. How much of his poem was actually understood by the English Theatre Company is not known. But Phil replied brilliantly with a story about the boy who ate himself, bit by bit, so that in the end there was nothing left but his well filled stomach. So there we have it, the definition of said haggis.
The nonsense, interspersed with more serious sketches, songs and music continued all afternoon to the enjoyment and amusement of us all culminating in a lovely picnic where everybody, except maybe our mean and grumpy old Scotsman contributed. After all, he has his national reputation to uphold!
