1. Firstly yay what an ace day! I had so much fun and it did actually feel like we got to know Silver Flame which is nice. It's also nice to see that teams aren't solid all the time, we're all just people trying to have a good time :) Again a massive thank you to organisers, Hannorah you're pub schedule was ace.
Ken took some photos which I'll go through today when I get back and put on facebook, if anyone wants to put anything on Twitter please do, saw some great stuff from yesterday (admittedly as I lay inbed this morning..)
2. Tomorrow we have a character practice so anyone who is interested please step forward! I had a chat with Simon Vaughan about it and got him to look at our dance and give suggestions of how a character (working with a tommy) could interact with the dance. He also made various points about a betty/character which were quite interesting, please see below:
Firstly he was totally on board with the idea that it doesn't need to be cross dressing, the important thing is that the betty is there for humour, they're basically just a slapstick character so after that it doesn't matter.
He also thought once we've figured out if someone's going to be able to do the interacting aspect with the dance there's potential for so many characters in connection with the tower that we've really got our pick- we had quite a long chat about inanimate objects, like a skeleton on a stick/wheels, or a raven hand puppet or someone dressed up as the tower (think braces to hold up I dunno, crenelations, and then wearing a crown and sceptre). I think this came from me emphasising we don't really have anyone to do the job, if you make it a physical thing, rather than an actual character it's easier for multiple people to take on the role.
In the dance:
Traditionally bettys come on later so he thought leave start totally blank and have the betty announce themselves during the square display (the first break in action really) although betty could also go through fountains but it's a short move now.
Running the opposite way round the spin- makes it look faster
Needles- you could have each character go through on opposite sides- i.e. betty mirror tommy.
or you could have some sort of chase scene- betty runs through and tommy shouts you can't go through there! OR visa versa with betty saying but you said we weren't allowed to dance.
6 sword lock could be done by betty or tommy- if betty had run through needles and tommy shouted at her then if tommy was 6th person betty could get angry.
Now, depending on if we had a character or an inanimate object would change the dynamic. He did think if it was an inanimate object Sue could hear them talk but no-one else can- 'what was that skeleton? Don't be so rude!!' or whatever..
Simon has also discussed it with Clive who are fully on board with helping characters and have offered to do some sort of character workshop to help with the 'clown' and dance interaction elements. I think we'd be best to have a go ourselves and come up with lots of ideas and then, if we're struggling, take them up on the offer.
Hope that all sounds ok, we by no means have to try all or any of the ideas and if you have any ideas please come along with them tomorrow! You don't have to be the character to have the idea :)
See you tomorrow!
Becky xx