Month: December 2022

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The White Rabbit

nataliegist

A white rabbit lives in my garden.  An escaped pet.  Not my escaped pet.  But he is now my pet.  Or as close as he’s ever going to be to being someone’s pet.  I couldn’t tell you exactly when he started to visit.  It seems now that he has always been a part of my life. Every day he comes and sits on the back wall, waiting for me to feed him.  If I am in the garden he will bound up to me and sit at my feet until I do feed him.  Or a little nose will appear through the plants just to remind me that he’s there. Sometimes he even lets me stroke him.  

In this freezing weather The White Rabbit visits every day, twice a day.  In the Summer his attendance is more sporadic.  Some days he lies stretched out under the plants, contentedly dozing in the dappled shade. Near the water bowl I leave out for him.  When it rains I put an umbrella out on its side to shield him whilst he is eating. The little bastard sits on the opposite side from the umbrella to eat and then hops into the middle of the garden, directly facing me in the teeming rain, entirely uncovered and absolutely soaked. I’ve bought him a grass house, put boxes out, hay, straw; he spurns them all.  I have no idea where he goes at night, but somewhere safe – this will be his fourth Winter.  Not bad going for a domestic rabbit who lives wild. 

On the days he doesn’t come, I look for him.  I worry that the last time I saw him was the last time that I will ever see him. And when he springs down the garden to see me, I feel a rush of joy that this unexpected and resourceful little creature came into my life. So I took a photo of him.  Just in case. One day will be his last visit.  And as the Winters pass, I know that that day is getting closer.

I went out for a festive dinner with some friends the other night.  Or ‘the girls’ to give them their correct collective noun.  We try and do this every so often – see each other long enough to have a conversation and eat a meal that we haven’t had to cook ourselves.  Like a lot of people we haven’t had much opportunity to get together over the past few years.  This has been further complicated by work, children getting older and going to different schools and one of our number having had the audacity to move half an hour down the road.  On having a chance to talk, it transpired that three of the six us have the joy of children taking GCSEs this Summer. What a delight. Another has the thrill of ‘A’ levels to look forward to.  Three had children start secondary school in September.  Two started new jobs.  Three lost someone we love in the last twelve months.  Another is enduring watching a loved one undergo chemotherapy.  Comforted by the survivor sat beside her.  Life.  Rolling on.  Relentlessly.

As she ordered a second glass of wine, Petite Blonde Friend asked the waitress if she would take a photo of all of us.  There was a murmur of protest from the assembled company, which was completely ignored. Rather than cause a last-minute dash to check hair and make-up as may have been the case for others, for some inexplicable reason, with the girls, the prospect of a photograph caused a furore of tidying.  I am considering asking them all round to my house on Christmas morning and threatening them with a Polaroid. So there, on a ‘phone and preserved for posterity is a photo of six middle-aged women in paper hats, drinks aloft an exceptionally tidy dining table. 

Like The White Rabbit, I don’t really recall precisely when the girls came into my life.  It was around the time Childerbeast Number One started primary school, as that was the place that we all had in common at one point in time.  But it was more random than that. And my goodness we’ve all lived a lot of life since then.  At this time of year, we all raise a toast to absent friends.  We miss them. God, it aches to miss them. But we should also toast our present friends.  Our white rabbits.  Whilst we have them.

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The Last Spinster in Gloucestershire’s Guide to Pantomime

nataliegist

Like many schoolchildren at this time of year, one of my Childerbeasts has just been to the Panto (“Oh no they haven’t”). One of her classmates who has joined them this year is from the US.  This child has never heard of Pantomime.  Of course they haven’t – why would they have done?  This child had absolutely no idea what it was, so naturally they asked their British friends to explain.  The rest of the class had a rather difficult time explaining it.  It wasn’t until I had this conversation with my child that it occurred to me how utterly baffling it must be to discover this peculiarly British phenomenon, and even more difficult to explain it to someone who has not come across it before.  Difficult, mainly because we don’t really know why we do it either.  Therefore, after the runaway success of my Christmas present guide last week, without further ado, I now present to you my helpful guide to Pantomime.

History

According to Wikipedia the word “pantomimus” in Latin derives from the Greek word (for which I do not know how to change to a Greek keyboard) meaning a dancer who performs all of the roles or all of the story.  It continues that “Pantomime is a type of musical comedy stage production designed for family entertainment….a participatory form of theatre in which the audience is encouraged to [join in].”

Western Culture has a long history of pantomime and it dates back to classical theatre in Ancient Greece.  Pantomimes in other cultures mean miming and only in Britain does it relate to our particular type of theatrical show.  So, anyone who is new to this cries “what is this particular type of theatrical show”?

The story will be loosely based on a fairy tale

Every Panto I have ever been to is loosely based on a fairy tale.  There is usually a male romantic lead, a female romantic lead, usually in pursuit of eachother, or looking for love and bumping into eachother.  There is also a maternal character trying to care for one or both of them and a baddie, trying to thwart their love with their evil plotting. 

The men dress up as women and the women dress up as men….sometimes

Perhaps this is becoming less of a thing now but all of the characters are mixed up in the sense that their clothing is not conventional according to gender.  The particular character that springs to mind is “Widow Twanky” who is always played by a man.  At the risk of broaching a controversial issue, this is not a trans issue.  Or on second thoughts, maybe it is because it is the character in the story that is the important thing, the costume is merely to assist with the story-telling and no one, and I mean no one, bats an eyelid.

Bad jokes

The show will be littered with the type of jokes that you get from a cracker.  I need to pause here to explain crackers further.

Crackers in Britain can mean two things.  The first is a dried savoury biscuit upon which you, generally speaking, put and eat together with cheese.  They can be enjoyed all year as a light snack.  However, at Christmas they accompany a large cheeseboard, cold meats, chutney and other nibbly bits.  One usually consumes too many and then complains loudly about having eaten too much, when you only have yourself to blame.  We also refer to these as biscuits.  But they’re not sweet biscuits, which we also call biscuits and Americans call cookies.  See? It makes perfect sense.  

The second are paper cylinders wrapped festively which contain a small gift, a paper hat and a piece of paper upon which is printed an appallingly unfunny joke.  These crackers are laid with the rest of the table for festive meals. When everyone is seated you invite one of your fellow diners to “pull a cracker” with you.  They accept and you each hold one end and pull.  After a modest amount of good-humoured grappling and some care for the glassware, there is a small bang as the cracker separates, with one person winning the half with all of the goodies, and the other entirely bereft.   But don’t worry, Bereft Diner, there is a cracker for everyone and everyone ends up with a paper hat (which you are expected to wear for the duration of the meal), a baffling and useless gift (a hair clip for someone with no hair – that sort of thing) and a rubbish joke, which you are obliged to share with the table.

For those unfamiliar with the type of jokes in crackers, they are the sort of jokes your dad tells.  You will notice this if your father or grandfather is at the show with you because you will see them taking mental notes of the jokes in order to deploy them at a later date. If they get a notebook out, leave immediately.

Audience participation

Generally speaking the British are uncomfortable about absolutely everything, including breathing.  And we’re comfortable that way.  But oddly not at a Pantomime.  Audience participation is expected and encouraged at Panto, and lots of people join in enthusiastically.  Just once a year.

Booing at the baddy

Goodies enter and stand stage right and baddies enter and stand stage left.  The villain will usually be preceded by a loud bang and a puff of smoke.  As soon as they appear, the audience is expected to boo loudly.  Loudly, but politely.  Not so loudly or for so long that the villain can’t be heard telling everyone about their nefarious plans.  They exit stage left with a booming cackle and a big sweep of a large cape.

Shouting stock phrases

You (the audience) may be asked by one of the characters to shout out a phrase at a particular time, usually to alert another character to something that they otherwise would not have noticed.  You will probably be encouraged and coached by that character to practise this all together so you all know what you’re doing at the crucial moment.  However, in addition, there are some phrases that will also come up that you will be expected to just shout out as a group when required.  Learn them now and I shall endeavour to put them into context next:

  • “Oh no it isn’t/oh yes it is.”

The audience answers back to this phrase.  Almost conversationally, one character shouts out “Oh no it isn’t” at which point you (the audience) will be expected to shout back “oh yes it is.” No, I have absolutely no idea why we do that.

  • “It’s behind you”

The audience is expected to shout this phrase out.  It may involve the baddy trying to sneak up on one of the goodies, the goody “hasn’t noticed” and they step around the stage in circles. I have a very early memory of Sister A (as a small child, not last week) being so enraged that the character hadn’t noticed that they were being sneaked up on that she got herself out of her seat and stomped her little legs down to the edge of the stage in order to berate them publicly.  In addition she made some unflattering remarks about their eyesight and even less complimentary ones as to their IQ.  It is the only time I have been to the theatre and seen the entire company helpless with laughter.

Singing

Oh dear god, yes there is also singing.  As in audience-participatory singing.  You may be split into groups – don’t panic at this point, it’s not going to be a rendition of ‘O Fortuna’. Again, you’ll get to practise. The words will probably be unravelled on a large piece of paper so everyone can see and someone may have a pointy stick to guide you along.  But if you can’t see or can’t remember, there is no need to worry, it won’t be tricky and no one takes it seriously.  So if like my beloved late grandfather, your best singing is a low growl that summons the rocks, or like my beloved late mother, you can sing only one note and it’s not one known to music, no one cares.

And finally….

You’ll probably get squirted with water at some point.  No, I don’t know why. Now that I’ve thought about it I don’t understand any of it. Yes, we are weird. Very weird.