The best medicine in the room where it happens...

Good Lord it felt good to laugh again!!

The AmDram group I’m a part of were having a read through of the panto script for Cinderella. Pictured here are Cashy and Big Kev who were reading for the ugly sisters at this point. We usually put some something on in the first couple of weeks of January, but with things being the way they are, it’s anyone’s guess if the show will indeed be allowed to go on.

With a 40-page dossier compiled by the director of Covid do’s and don’ts, we’ve got our work cut out just to get the performers on the stage, but I think he secretly likes the challenge of having to take a different approach to staging a panto. Doing creatively more with less.

Whether it happens or not, I was keen to get down there and see my friends again, which was like an adrenalin shot to the system – all in a socially distanced environment of course. As a self-confessed luvvie, I am partial to a hug with everyone, but not being able to do that, it was elbow taps and smiley faces all round.

I can’t tell you how nice it was to chug down the perfect cocktail of comfort, support and abuse. Normal service resumed, we got stuck into the script and chuckled, giggled and groaned our way through the jokes. There was a particularly nice segment when I was reading in as ‘Buttons’ where he laments the fact that he’s on his own and nobody loves him, which we all had a good belly laugh at with art imitating life incredibly accurately – just reading that back makes it sound incredibly mean, but it was genuinely a very funny moment.

I also got to geek out over Hamilton with someone who is just as obsessed with it (if not more so) as I am and we were humming tunes throughout.  

Somewhere in my day, I also squeezed in the first 10k I have done in a while and managed to bring it in just under an hour, which I was delighted with.

All in all, a very good day.