You shall go to the ball...

So - last night was the church concert. There were songs, instrumental interludes, and comedy sketches. I was in one of the comedy sketches.

It was called 'In Panto'. Pantomime is a particularly British thing - Christmas comedies based on fairy tales, girls playing the boys, men playing the women - and so on.

This was a spoof on an already wonderfully silly tradition, then.

All the main characters from Cinderella were there. We walked on stage carrying our chairs, and suitable reading matter - from 'Princess' magazine for Cinderella and 'Horse and Hounds' for Prince Charming to 'Heat' for one of the Ugly sisters.

We plonked our chairs down, and all sat, po-faced and gloomy, looking at our magazines. The idea was for us all to look about as happy and cheerful as my great-aunt Marion in this icon!

Then the narrator - my sister in black suit and silver top-hat - stands and starts 'The story of Cinderella', sits, stands again, 'I am the Narrator,' sits down again, and then we all stood in turn, as we said our lines in a flat voice, and sat again. The entire story is told in one liners like this. A sort of 'Shakespeare in 5 minutes' version of Cinderella.

So my entire lines were

'I am the fairy god-mother.'
'I am good.'
'Why are you sad?'
'You shall go to the ball.'
'Be back by twelve'.
'I am still good.'

Cinderella's lines were almost all 'All right.'
As in 'I am going to the ball, mend my dress.' 'All right.'

'I am going to the ball, polish my shoes.' 'All right.'

Until 'It fits, marry me.' 'All right'.

The audience were in fits of laughter, and the hardest part for those of us on stage was to keep the totally dead-pan straight faces.

For those of you who have been reading 'Return of The Key'; I tried to 'think elf'!

So pics - ( under the cut )