Toby's Manifesto

So...Toby spent a very long time writing this in order to get elected by his peers to School Council. Toby has ADHD and suspected ASD and isn't the most popular kid in class. So he didn't get elected. And he was utterly heartbroken. BUT I posted this manifesto on facebook and had the most awesome response from my friends. So I'm tweeting it out there and putting out here for anyone to comment on. He's nine years old. And he rocks my world.

MY SCHOOL COUNCIL MANIFESTO

By Toby Alexander Edwards

A manifesto on how to become part of school council and purge Torridon Junior school of it’s greatest problems

My dear friends and classmates, if you vote for me to be your representative on the School Council I will promise to do these following things:

1.)My first suggestion is for the school to no longer speak in a single voice.

I am suggesting making a cardboard box I call the “suggestion box” with this, if any student has a good idea to improve the school, they can write down what there suggestion is on a slip and put it into the suggestion box. There will be 1 suggestion box in each and every class. At the end of the week, someone (say Mrs Parkhouse) empties the suggestion box, and decides which suggestions are good ones to use, or which is just for their own fun.

Example:

Good suggestion: make our own school “Be a Buddy not a Bully” club

Suggestion for someone’s own fun: Have the school cafeteria serve chips and burgers 1 week, fish fingers and chips another week, crispy fish and chips another week, and pizza and fries another week FOREVER!!

2.) My second suggestion is to have lonely students, to be happy and the EXACT OPPOSITE OF LONELY!

I think we should have a friendship bench. Students who have no friends  (those who do not have friends, I feel your pain ) can sit on the friendship bench, and someone will come and BOOM! Ultimate friendship power !!

3.) don’t think I didn’t forget about the infants!

My next suggestion is to have someone in the school council to read a fairytale aloud to a chosen infants class. At some point we could do a puppet show! That will 100% make the infants happy (I think)

4.) my final suggestion is to delete the schools greatest and most horrific problem...

BULLYING!!! 

I suggest someone who is being mean such as swearing to someone or hurting someone, should be sent into a room for a while. If they do not learn their lesson and do this repeatedly: PUNISHMENT! (If someone does this with a friend, they must be separated so they do not chat or play rock, paper, scissors)

In conclusion:

·        Happy students

·        No more bullies

·        Entertainment for the infants

·        Our school no longer speaking in a single voice

AND IF I DON’T DELIVER THOSE THINGS TO YOU, YOU MAY STRIKE ME DOWN!...

Vote for me !

Pictures for Tiffey

2014 in retrospect

So it's the last day of 2014 and as everyone does, I'm looking back. And it's actually been the best year I can remember for a while. I know not everyone can say the same - I have some friends who have had a truly dreadful year. But for me 2014 was a good one. A dream came true - Cosi Fan Tutte in the West End - I met a hero - Armistead Maupin. My boys are getting older - Toby in the Juniors now - and easier. I had three amazing holidays. I made some new friends and appreciated some old ones. So I'm feeling positive going into next year. No idea what it will hold.

We never celebrate New Years - even before children it was rare for us to go out and party. Tonight I imagine will be a quiet one. But I'm thankful for the year I've had. Even though I rarely blog, I had to write this post and look back!

Crazi Fan Tutte!

So my dream came true last Friday -made my west end debut in Cosi Fan Tutte at the Coliseum. It was a magical wonderful night - made all the more specialby my lovely sis and sis-in-law sending me the BIGGEST bouquet imaginable. I saw it by the stage door and assumed it was for one of the principals and then squealed with excitement when I saw it was for me!

Reviews have been mixed - I think we're like Marmite - you either love it or if you're an opera purist you hate it....

So if you're in London and at a loose end - there are 11 shows left.... www.eno.org/cosi

so...an actor post for the first time in ages....

I got a job! Woo hoo! I'm two weeks in but am taking the opportunity the Easter weekend is giving me (ie I am not exhausted) to update my blog!

I'm working with Improbable Theatre in collaboration with English National Opera. Phelim McDermott, the director, has directed operas before and gets a skills ensemble involved - actors and performers - to help construct the world of the opera.

We're doing Cosi Fan Tutte -a classic Mozart comedy - and it's set in Coney Island in the 50's - and the skills ensemble are the carnys. We're an interesting combo as you can see!

The majority come from cabaret and circus - we have a contortionist, a fire eater, a cabaret freakshow all-rounder (piercings, blockhead, fire, glass walking etc), a strongman, a sword swallower, a giant, two little people, a fusion bellydancer, an actrobat and then ME! And one other actor who specialises in physical theatre and has worked with Phelm before.

It took me a while to find out why the hell I was there - I couldn't do any stunts or tricks....(I'm the fat lady and the bearded lady btw)....but in the second week it became very clear - this style of devised performance is what I trained in. I'd forgotten how much fun it is to be so physical and creative.

Working with the singers is awesome - I'm blown away by their talent - not only do they have to remember the lines, sing in tune (and Mozart has a LOT of notes) but they also have to act. It's mindblowing. They're also really lovely to work with - we feel like a company rather than us and them.

You can read more about it here  - Dan Ayling our AD is writing a blog. And Phelim is interviewed about it here.

It's always been my dream to perform in the West End and it's coming true. We open at the Coliseum on 16th May. It's such a beautiful theatre - the shining ball on top is something so familiar.

 And it's definitely the biggest gig I've ever played! 2,359 seats! Argh! This is the view from the stage!

I'll try and post more when I have time. I'm just so utterly thankful to be working again and working on such an amazing production - totally different to anything I've done before.....

So.....

Yet again my resolution for doing a photo a day seems to have fallen by the wayside. Hey ho. My life is chaos it doesn't surprise me.

BUT I have news! Exciting happy clappy news. I've been trying really hard to kickstart my acting career recently - be a bit more proactive. I paid for IMDB pro so now if you look at my imdb page here, you can see my photo. I've done a lot of workshops with The Actors Guild. And I went and saw my lovely agent about why I wasn't getting auditions...and lo and behold 2 days later I'm auditioning.

I met Phelim McDermott whose work I've admired since I saw Shockheaded Peter back in 2002 on the West End. He runs Improbable Theatre Company. And he's directing Cosi Fan Tutte for the English National Opera. I met him last Wednesday - it was a strange audition. This was the brief

We are looking for performers to join our Skills Ensemble for the production. Basically, this is a group of actors and performers who will form an integral part of the production: establishing the world of the opera and facilitating changes of scenery (i.e. moving set/props around), as well as performing routines.

Phelim and set designer Tom Pye have chosen to set the opera in the 1940s Coney Island world of Carnivalesque, Freak Shows and Circus. So, we are looking to people this world with incredible performers of all sizes, shapes and skills. 

It was an utter pleasure just to sit with Phelim who showed me the set design and talked about his ideas. But I just had to be me. And I admitted I couldn't really "do" any freaky tricks - he mentioned they'd seen a lot of glass eaters that day plus a sword swallower - but I talked about work I'd done, devising experience, artists we both knew etc. 

And I got the job! So I must have done something right! So as of next Monday, I'm in rehearsal. And we open on the 16th May. Tickets are insanely expensive and details are here. I'm not sure exactly WHAT I'll be doing in the production - but I'm sure it's going to be amazing. I'll blog when I can about it. It was a mad rush to arrange childcare but I managed it - the universe seemed to be smiling on me as a mum who has SEN kids herself suddenly had a vacancy at exactly the right time. Thank you Karma....

One of the best bits? I get to be on the West End. And go through a Stage Door to work - one of my dreams since I was a little girl. And yesterday I got to go through it for the first time for a wardrobe meeting.....and my heart fluttered. I feel like an ACTOR again goddammit! I've never worked on a stage show this big before. With a live orchestra...and opera singers....it's going to be amazing.

29/365/2014

Yes! Old pics from the shed. As you can see, this one didn't escape the damp. But I love it. Baby Bert and Baby Me. We've been together since 1991 which is a headfuck really. 23 years. We are so young in this pic!!!

28/365/2014

We're finally getting the horrid shed at the bottom of our garden replaced. I thought I'd be able to clear it out at the weekend but I had to do it today without the help of strong husband. Luckily my amazing Daddy came to my rescue and between the two of us we chucked and bagged up years of crap! I am a hoarder. There were lots of things in there that if I'd looked at closely, I'd probably have kept. But I was ruthless (as you can see) and it's all gone. I did manage to salvage some old photos - more of those later methinks.

27/365/2014

Clogsilk's birthday! I meant to get a picture of her in her funky new hat (what I bought her) but I forgot. The only pic I took was of these rather posh crisps

26/365/2014

Another filler....and another photo of food! I must stop taking food pics for at least one month of PAD....is there anything better than the retro joy of Arctic Roll?

25/365/2014

It's Saturday. So the only thing I do of note is sit in a freezing cold shed, surrounded by the smell of manure, and watch my boy on a horse. I wanted to share this one, even though I've already PADed him this month, because this was Oscar with a new leader - he's usually too nervous to let anyone but his favourite Charlie lead him - but she wasn't there. So Georgia did the honours and she was fab. And I love her jumper.

24/365/2014

I'm not going to have many more Fridays with Clogsilk. I'm going to miss our adventures when she starts work full time in February. Boo hoo. So we just HAD to go to Bluewater and enjoy the last day of Blue January Yo Sale. HOW many pictures of sushi have I had this month?

23/365/2014

God help me...I accompanied Toby's Year 2 class to the National Gallery. I was NOT allowed to take photos in the gallery but I snuck this one (apologies to the Gallery but I was taking the kids picture, not the picture's picture). The tour guide was very snotty and quite rude to our class teacher. As someone who works in Museum Education myself, I wasn't impressed. Kids didn't care though. They had a ball....I was exhausted!

22/365/2014

I created sausage pasta bake in an attempt to make Toby eat it. He picked out the sausage. Left the rest....sigh...

21/365/2014

A total filler cheat pic - I didn't take ANY photos today!

God I'm so behind! Already!! 20/365/2014

Apologies for utter crapness. And be prepared for mass uploading here!

On Mondays I tend to escape the house (my cleaner comes and I have middle class guilt and can't be there when she is) so I snuck to Westfield Stratford. It was so nice! Really quiet compared to the pre-Christmas rush period. Had a mooch....and a coffee.....

19/365/2014

Toby's birthday party today at Pizza Express in Blackheath. Kids loved it. I was knackered!

18/365/2014

My lovely chap allowed me to shave his beard off. I got part way through...and the battery ran out. So he looked quite demented for an hour and was unable to leave the house....

17/365/2014

Clare and I at Bluewater playing with our cameras. And eating sushi. AGAIN! It's only cos Yo have a sale on!!

16/365/2014

I think my feet look funny here!