"So... just die."

"Just die." Said our artistic director today. Okay Steve... Obediently we all slid down the wall and died.  Now that's authority for you.

At the London Buddhist Arts Centre today for clowning and movement. A-woohoo! Sadly I had to miss the first couple of hours in the morning, but Thea and I arrived around 12 and tried to catch up as quickly as possible. These monkeys move fast, particularly with Steve at the helm.

I was reliably informed by the lovely Hattie that Earth had spent the morning working on simple clown and when we arrived they were just beginning to put this into practice in a scene. So two people. The simple clown was sent out of the room, the idea being that when they entered they would have absolutely no idea what was going on. The 'straight character' was given the scenario and then just had to play the scene. Obvious comedy gold ensued but as we start building on all the basics we have learned so far, this clowning malarky is getting pretty tough. But everyone did an absolutely stellar job. Hats off to Max and Tash who went first. Next time my radiator is leaking I'm definitely calling Tash. Even if the charge is "somewhere between £50 and £500". Vicky was infinitely patient with the hilariously ineffectual hit-man Michaela, Sam Elson and Sam Adamson went to town when Sam E called simple-clown-prostitute Sam A over for a bit of fun, and Natasha, Jack and Lamb had probably the most stressful home birth in the history of the world. Legends all of them!

The most important thing we are told is to remember to PLAY. The simple clown's lack of comprehension is obviously very funny but it is so hard not to become vacant and I'm still trying to figure this one out. I need to have a good sit down and have a proper think and get my head round it. (Maybe not the best idea as the motto of the day seemed to be "stop intellectualising!" but there we go.)

We then stood in the obligatory drama-circle :) and the 'intelligent people' were asked to put their hands up. I abstained from this particular label (Friday saw my maths skills tested to their limit and I only had to count to three). These intelligent people then became 'boss-clowns' and had to boss us simple chaps about, and using things in the room build the Eiffel Tower. Steve seemed less than impressed with our attempt which included pot plants and a Buddha head, but there we go.

We then put the boss clown in charge of organising five (simple) employees to guard an expensive antique chair, the instruction being, DON'T TOUCH THE CHAIR! It is very difficult for the boss-clown to remain a clown, whilst being authoritative, again, need to have a think about it. We likened the boss clown to a horrid slightly senior person in a 24 hour tescos who has been left in charge for the night. This comparison pleased me greatly as I am a little bit cross with my tesco metro! They told me off for wearing my pyjamas! All I wanted was teabags. I felt the dressing down I received (no pun intended) was quite unnecessary. Anyway back to the warehouse, for us simple people the game seemed to become who was brave enough to touch the chair when the boss left the room.
It was hard to marry simple clown, tension states, archetypes, dropping, clocking, bewilderment AND play. That's a lot to remember and everyone produced some lovely, lovely stuff and once all these ideas have settled we are going to knock it out of the park!

Blimey we got through a lot today. So next up we moved on to pathetic clown. This is where Steve asked us all to get on with it and die. So. We had to slide down the wall (having just been painfully poisoned) trying to convince an audience that we were absolutely fine. We then looked at a little speech and slid down the wall of death once more, this time saying these lines. We were told to trust that the action of sliding down the wall would inform the audience that all was not well and just try to say the words normally. Watching these it really, genuinely began to upset me. Everyone was profoundly moving, especially Sam A. Continuing along this track, Tash and I then did an improvisation where our best friend had just died, but we were tucking into a delicious feast. Again, it affected me quite a lot and from my snatched glances at Tash she was being wonderful. We accidentally went into the land of naturalism a bit, but Maria and Sam E's death by drowning in a cave whist discussing interior decorating was brilliant, and again very moving. Turning something like that on its head, and playing the opposite is so, so watchable and very affecting. Max mentioned playing Hamlet's final lines in such a way, and I'm sorry, not to keep banging on about it but if you're interested, Michael Sheen WILL break your heart by doing exactly this -- I got up at stupid o'clock on Saturday and got a seat for the matinee to see it again. Because I'm cool. My new saying 'give it a bit of Sheen', or 'channel the Sheen-machine' has now been adopted by Georgia and Thea and we are finding it very helpful indeed! (I shall not mention the thrust action that accompanies both of these -- but Thea did a brilliant rendition of it walking into her Lamda audition this morning.)

We then we joined by the lovely Charlene for a bit of movement. Jolly, jolly fun ensued as we continued to explore the use of the breath and impulses. Partnering was the name of the game once more, and we began to introduce lifts; these were often not the most flattering of positions to find yourself in. It's a good job we all get on so well. Everyone is forgiving bums in faces and feet in mouths.
We continued to try to move our partners across the space using breaths and impulses, which progressed to closing our eyes moving each other alternately to the other side.
The afternoon came to a close as we all tried to make it across the space attached in some way to our partners... rolling. Seriously, we are so very lucky to be having such lovely playtime on a Sunday afternoon. Whilst my initial rolling attempt with Rowan went quite well, in a group of three this proved a little more tricky. We got rather hysterically baffled but made it in the end! Also, mental note to self, watch out for Maxine, she has some kind super-human-strength-thing going on! What a lovely bunch of people to be spending all this time with, and we are so blessed to have Steve and Charlene with us guiding us through it. All these lifts, eyes closed business, cheering each other on and countless pats on the back goes to show the level of trust and friendship that us Earthlings have with each other, and chatting to people on the walk to the tube, we're all feeling pretty merry.

Back home to Clapham where my housemates Hannah and Laura had made me a lovely, lovely, lovely dinner (so a MASSIVE thank you) and Hannah's homemade apple crumble, with lashings and lashings of coconut rum embarrassingly made me quite wobbly.  The important issue of decorating for Christmas was addressed. Hannah and I registered our objections to 'colour coding', to which Laura groaned "it's going to look like we've just thrown up Christmas", which I thought was rather brilliant and got hysterical to the point where I disrupted X factor! A sin in 11 Poutney Road. I am in the dog-house but have stolen more crumble so all is well.