Fuddland

I’m not really one for standing up on stage and performing for an audience. I don’t even enjoy lecturing or giving talks, so the thought of doing something that requires a bit more … showmanship … doesn’t sit well with me.

I’ve not always suffered from this mild stage fright. I used to enjoy performing in plays when I was very young. I was told that my Joseph, dealing with the harsh reality of raising a Son who was not his own, was a very mature performance for a four-year old; I believe they still talk of my Rama in the corridors of Braintcroft Infants School. And the world is inarguably a better place for having my Mad March Hare captured for posterity on dodgy camcorder by girl-playing-Alice’s dad.

But then came The War of the Worlds.

So repressed is this memory, I can recall only the barest of details — cruelly brought bubbling to the surface by L. Ron’s chum’s new promotional-tour-slash-The-World-According-To-Tom media onslaught after not giving the incident a second thought for seventeen years.

For several weeks a small, hand-picked [by evil teachers] group of boys were trained by a young female choreographer to dance to the main theme [The Eve of the War (Introduction and Part 1)] from Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds, to perform in front of parents and teachers. The reasons for this are lost, as are — thankfully — the precise steps, but there were shoulder-shimmies; there were look-left, look-right, look-lefts; there may even have been steppity-steps and jazz hands. And there was definitely a: lie on your back, roll over once, slide one foot up to meet the other leg’s knee, then thrust one’s crotch skywards in time to the tune [thrust-thrust thruuuuust, diddle-eee, diddle-eee, thrust-thrust thruuuust]. For a boy on the brink of puberty, being watched by his parents and his friends — wearing, I should add, a tight white t-shirt and black shorts so small they may well be illegal in schools nowadays — they might as well have stripped me naked and gotten me to count out loud precisely how many hairs had begun to sprout on my chest, I’d have been less embarrassed.

And I didn’t even win the prize for best dancer of the group. Pah.

#1

Mark | 2005 / 07 / 05 – 08:24

What delightful imagery you’ve ruined my breakfast with there. Jeff Wayne’s WOTW … my parents used to play that all the time when I was young; scared the living bejeesus out of me. Of course I think it’s fantastic now and even have the remix album too but at the time the sounds of the cannisters opening and the screams of the war machines was absolutely terrifying. I think it was the mix of low bass and high-pitched noises - similar to the Dr Who theme tune - that created the psychological effect. Probably also explains why I love the emotional feel of industrial music these days. But, getting back to your post … horrid, horrid pictures in my mind. You swine.

#2

David | 2005 / 07 / 05 – 08:38

Re #1: My work here is done. ;)

#3

Clair | 2005 / 07 / 05 – 09:42

I’m going to be giggling about this all day…

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