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Posts Tagged ‘Griffin Players’

  1. Life advice #1: Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.

    January 12, 2013 by Amy Hansford

    Life advice from a 90 year old? I’ll take it.
    Backstory blog can be found here.

    its-okay1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.

    Since the start of December, I have been learning the words, songs, dances and blocking to play Aladdin in the Griffin Players‘ pop up panto, a one off day of shows for the families of a local company. The chap who played him in the main family panto wasn’t available on the planned show date and I was delighted to be asked to step in.

    It was great. I’ve never played a lead in a panto. I’ve played the comedy lead over and over, which I adore. But the romantic lead? I’ve neither the look or the grace for it. But somehow, we made it work, and rehearsals were brilliant. Full of laughs and I finally got to sing a solo, something unheard of since the days of Anything Goes (2007?).

    The night before the panto I was struck down with the norovirus. When it hit me at 5am that I wouldn’t be able to do the show despite all the hard work, I was absolutely gutted. Gutted for letting down the cast, gutted for giving the director a horrid task the morning of the show, and gutted to have had the opportunity taken away from me.

    A knight in shining armour made it to the venue with 15 minutes to spare before the first show and played Aladdin with script in hand to an amazed audience and a grateful cast. The shows went down brilliantly – the Griffins have been asked back next year – and the day was saved. Meanwhile, I was – well, you know – for the next three days.

    So that’s the “life isn’t fair” bit. But it’s still good.

    It gave me an enforced rest break in these months of rehearsals/visits/work/being a mummy. As a friend pointed out, while it was cruel to have put in all that work and then fall ill, it gave me a chance to remember what it’s like to be on a stage. To sing. To learn a dance routine. It stopped me from going too rusty. It reminded me how much fun it is to be part of a cast family again.

    And you know what? It’s still good.


  2. Countdown

    January 4, 2013 by Amy Hansford

    No, not the telly programme. The timed anticipation of events. And there are lots of them coming in 2013.

    3 weeks until: Opening night for Friends Of Dorothy, the adult panto that I co-wrote for the Griffin Players. Rehearsals invariably contain a portion of people becoming unable to speak through laughter. The cast are just so good at what they do and are so easy to direct. The show is going to be brilliant.
    2 months until: The end of an era! More on this nearer the time.
    3 months until: Little L’s second birthday. No idea what to do yet, but the thought of being able to do anything at all is quite exciting.
    And a bit further to: Jenny and Stuart’s wedding. It’s going to be brilliant.

    And they’re just for starters. It’s going to be a good year.


  3. Slimming World: Day 2

    January 6, 2012 by Amy Hansford

    Having spoken to a few of the Griffin Players on how they’re coping with the Slimming World rules, they were split pretty much in half: those who realise it’s fairly similar to what they were eating before and are happy, and those who resent not being able to have a full fat coke. To all the latter; don’t forget you can go wild in the diet aisle!

    Day two wasn’t quite as successful as day one, but it did represent a return to the workplace for Alex so there were always going to be issues.

    Breakfast was porridge. Not my favourite, which is why it was a good job Alex was eating it and not me.

    Lunch was planned to be beans on toast. However, for health and safety reasons, toasters have been banned from Alex’s workplace. Beans on bread doesn’t have quite the same feel to it, but hey ho. It’s an easy option so he’ll be having that for work lunches from now on. This leaves me with a fridge chock full of salad to be used up. Somehow I feel Alex is getting the better end of the diet at the moment.

    I ran out of time to do dinne before leaving for rehearsals, so left Alex to fend for himself in the kitchen. We had everything in for the Chilli Beef Noodles but, as I understand it, he left it cooking a little too long. It probably tastes better when it’s not burned…


  4. Slimming World: Day 1

    January 5, 2012 by Amy Hansford

    Alex, like many of the Griffin Players, has started Slimming World. The theory behind this diet is that most meats trimmed of all visible fat, veg and fruit is ‘free’, while other things have ‘Syn’ points. For example, two tablespoons of light mayonnaise is 1 Syn, a Jaffa Cake is 3 Syns, etc. Alex has up to 15 Syns a day. I make up a menu at the start of each week (mainly so I can make sure we have enough shopping in), only now it’s run by Slimmers World.

    You should know at this point that I dislike cooking. I don’t hate it, but there is a definite resentment at the amount of time it takes to grate an onion, chop veg, measure out spices etc. You should know also that whenever I’m preparing dinner I’m also feeding my nine month daughter whilst aiming to be out of the door as soon as Alex arrives home in order to make it rehearsals 20 minutes late. This means that these meals had better bloody be worth it, or I’m going back to sticking something in the oven for 40 minutes.

    I thought it might be valid to have a real world look at someone on Slimmers World, so here it is.

    Day one.

    Breakfast was brilliant. Giant fry up. Lovely and took me through to well past lunchtime hunger wise.

    For lunch we nipped over the marina to the Carvery. Nomilicious. Alex found he could eat pretty much everything on offer but needed to check Syns of a few things when we got back.

    For dinner, I made meatballs and spaghetti. We used wholemeal spaghetti – I bought pretty much wholemeal everything in the last shop as it’s meant to be better for you, Syns or no Syns. You know what? Wholemeal spaghetti tastes fine, don’t fret it. It was a bit of a pain prepping and cooking everything simultaneously, but it came out pretty good. I whacked a salad on the side so my portions didn’t seem too small. I’m impressed at how good it tastes. I made enough to put two portions aside to ‘ding’ another day, so not a bad start.


  5. All change

    January 3, 2012 by Amy Hansford

    You may notice that ye olde blog looks a little different. I thought it was time for a little update and change of colour, plus changing to a theme that gives me a little more breathing space on the blog side of the panel compared to the last one. You like?

    According to Google Analytics, someone came to my website last month using possibly the most amusing phrase ever as a search term. “how to touch a girls butt without her finding out while she is awaket”. Brilliant. Certainly tickled me. The answer is here for you kiddo: don’t. You’ll get the most amazing slap if you do.

    And finally, I did say that I would make a hat to go with the washing-up themed pantomime dame dress below. That I did. Using baubles hotglued to a base and kept on with elastic, it’s meant to look like washing up bubbles. Unfortunately, given the rigorous nature of the dance routine involved, the hat had to be retired to the dressing room. Mind you, it still looked bloody good up to that point!