Hooray the Ides of March!
At last the first rooty tendrils of spring are pushing through the black compost of winter and the tiny leaves bursting
through the surface into the sun.
You can tell I’ve been in the greenhouse
can’t you? I invested half of my mystery
patron’s investment into seeds and bulbs at the 50p shop and have a bulging bag
of goodies to plant and sow later today.
The day looks as though it will gradually open up into warm spring
sunshine and I have nothing to do today except potter and think, a combination
of pleasures that is really irresistible.
The week has been tiring with Cat's Paw Theatre and I had a lot of
chores yesterday. I think I mentioned I
have a miniature twin tub hiding in the lorry.
So yesterday was washing day and I now don’t have any dirty clothes
(only a huge pile of ironing). It was a thrilling last day of the Six Nations
so I watched while I washed and then cleaned the inside of the lorry. I cannot justify just sitting in front of
four hours of rugby on one day though I’m sure many can and do! So I listen to the commentary and do the housework,
well no, lorrywork at the same time only stopping to watch the exciting
bits. Two of the advantages to living in
one small space is that you don’t have much to clean and the tv is never far
away! One of the disadvantages to having
a woodburner in that same small space is that everything becomes very grimy
very quickly.
Anyway I don’t want to bore you with my
cleaning stories when you have so many of your own, so suffice it to say my
living space is shiny and my clothes are clean.
Cat’s Paw Theatre had some great news in
the week. I’ve mentioned the little clicker
devices we borrowed to use to garner young people’s views for upward
transmission to the Welsh Assembly Government.
In this way theatre is being truly politicised. The founder of our theatre movement, Augusto
Boal, advocated politicising theatre and theatricalising politics. Well, the little clicker devices are great as
we can ask the audience questions and register their knowledge before and after
the presentation. It’s very useful and very
revealing. The problem is that the
clicker devices themselves are past their best.
An example of yesterday’s technology, great when they were new three
years ago but now the company that made them has gone and there is therefore no
support or spare parts. And I’ve had to
gaffer tape some of the kit to make it work. Anyway on Wednesday I had an idea
that maybe we could have them replaced so I phoned our contact at the County
Council and 24 hours later had a phone call that we could go ahead and order
the new kit. Nearly three grand’s worth
of state of the art, brand new, wireless technology. The fastest ever
idea-to-cash I think I’ve had. And I’ve had
a few of those in my time. Never for me
personally I have to say. It just
happened to come at slippage time. The
annual beanfeast around the Ides of March when County Councils have dosh left
and nothing to spend it on!
We are going to use the clickers in a new
FE production. The police have indicated
that since we have been touring the show to High Schools the statistics have
changed. Five years ago when we piloted
the project they were having to deal with a great many complaints about rape
and sexual violence from under 16 year olds.
Scary but true. The parents
thought the schools were teaching it and the schools thought the parents ought
to, and often no-one was. Which was
where we came in. Now, though, the
demographics have changed. The police
now say that they are not having nearly as many reports from the under 16s. It’s
moved up to the 16–24 years olds. The under-16 complaints have dropped
substantially. Obviously we can’t claim a causal correlation, but we do know
that over 10,000 young people have seen the piece in that time and at the very
least they have been told what rape is and have heard about the deeper
implications of consent. And we have
evidence that the way in which we are presenting this topic is being remembered
several years later.
We are planning to use the new clickers in
the new production not only to garner the statistics the government are seeking
but also to allow the audience to make decisions about the process of the story
itself, to see what happens if characters behave in one way or another. A real rehearsal for reality. More about this next time.
So I’ve a lot of thinking to do. To the greenhouse…
All the best from a road near you,
Mr Alexander