Saturday 2 August 2008

I am an unbiased critic. Honestly.

Before anything else happens, la famille Grit and Dig muster at the local community hall to attend Shark's drama performance. Shark, and 39 other kids who happen to be there as well.

Shark has been every morning at a drama workshop for the last week, this being summer holidays and all, and today the miniature dramatis personae are showing the parents what their hard-earned money just bought them.

Well, I can say as a person who has watched a bit of theatre here and there that the end result is two hours of total crap with kids running about all over the place pretending to be acting, and my daughter, Shark, a shining beacon of dramatic excellence, taking centre stage as a ghost for fifteen seconds and allowing a spell-bound audience to witness the next Katharine Hepburn and Ingrid Bergman rolled into one.

How can I convey the talent that shines through Shark's debut performance? The power she brought to that whooooo hooooo noise? The characterisation she brought to that part? Can I explain how much I felt I really knew the sufferings and trauma the ghost had gone through when it couldn't eat the cheese sandwich because it had no stomach? I don't think so. I can only say that I am a very proud mummy, sixty quid was a bargain, and I had to wait nearly an hour and a quarter for the only bit that mattered.

And I would like to guess that all the parents went home today with their offspring, saying, well what a terrible show! It was just a bunch of kids running about the place! But did you work with the ghost? Did you get to learn something from her technique? Did you hear the way she went whooooo hooooo? That, offspring, is total charisma.

And for Shark, CLAP CLAP APPLAUSE!

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