The curtain falls...

Well it does in a metaphorically way, as the curtain on our stage only moves with difficult, so the end of the play was marked by an immediate blackout.

I am pleased to report that all three performances went extremely well. The performances weren’t flawless, but they were very, very good, and extremely proud of each and everyone of the cast and crew, they have all worked extremely hard and reaped the rewards during and after the performances.

The Dress Rehearsal performance on Tuesday was well received by Years 3-6 (7-11 year olds), who despite their age really got into the plot and were keen to discuss the plot twists and turns during the two intervals. I also received a deputation of 7 year old Theatre Critics with their reviews this morning which were very well written and quite insightful.

The performance on Thursday was recorded and hopefully copies will be available soon and I will try and add some clips when I can. Dawn News was also there on Thursday night which resulted in a 4 minute report on the Dawn News channel during their News Hour shows.

The Friday night was there best performance ever and it played to capacity crowd, with some overflow seating and many people unable to get tickets.

After the performance some of the staff went to Pompeii for dinner, only to find some of the cast at the next table!! We retired to the garden tables which at least put a window between us and them. The meal was delicious with me partaking in the Stuffed Mushrooms followed by the King Prawns with lemon risotto, by which time I was not in need of dessert!

Today, Lubna and I took the cast out for lunch at Café Flo, which is part of Alliance Francais and we had a lovely time and enjoyed another delicious meal, this time I had the Grilled Salmon with Dill Sauce and Baked potato, I followed this with the Crème Brulee which is (in the words of Mrs Guthrie!) ‘to die for’! The last four months have been a lot of hard work but I glad we did it. I can see a change in each of the students who took part, and they a buzzing with it all. They are all busy discussing what they would like to do next year, which currently range from Dracula to Alice in Bollywood!

Tuesday was also the Primary School Sports Day which went of very well, my favourite race was the Year 1 ‘running and putting your clothes on race’, where the 5 year olds had to run and at various points put on various items of clothes. The little boy who came in last showed true perseverance, despite getting completely lost in his father’s T shirt he kept going until he crossed the finishing line. The other race I observed was the ‘Dad’s race’, which continued to prove my hypothesis that men are the same the world over. 15 or so dads lined up for the 40 yard dash, and immediately some started limber up and look like they were getting ready for the marathon. The starting signal was given and off the went, unfortunately, some had not allowed for the fact there was a 12 foot wall at the race and so several of then need to ‘bounce’ of it to stop themselves!

The other event this week was my diving expedition. This went very well, and I had no problems ‘clearing my ears’ on the first dive, though I did have some problem when I tried to dive again and so gave up and returned to the boat. I then attempted to get back in the boat… I attempted to use the ladder, this was not the way… we then attempted to drag and push me into the boat, this meant that at one point both my feet and both my hands were in the boat though the rest of me was still in the sea and Stewart was attempting to push me up! This resulted in the comment from him along the lines of ‘I now feel strangely soiled’ and an agreement that we would never discuss this moment again!!

Finally, I replaced my fins and with the extra propulsion was able to make it easily into the boat, much to my relief as the alternative was hanging onto the back of the boat and being towed for 45 minutes back to the beach, of course if we had done this we would, at least have won the prize for the biggest catch of the day…