Page 37 - Phonebox Magazine February 2014

Review
Prof. D. Ince
I was expecting some modern ending to the evening involving the forester’s axe; happily this did not happen.
It was the most amazingly inclusive panto that I have seen. Not only were there many children taking a meaningful part in the production—much to the delight of the audience—but every speaker was shadowed by an interpreter who used British Sign Language. The interpreters did this in character so that reactions were mirrored and emphasised, adding a whole new dimension to the production.
There were ample opportunities for audience participation, I even shouted out to the Wolf that they they should get back to Wolverton. An audience of a wide age spread seemed to really enjoy the event. What was particularly excellent about the whole production were the huge numbers involved, perhaps a number close to the population of Cranfield, and the fact that this worked is both a testament to the skills of the director, Clare Tyers, and the robustness of the stage foundations which withstood a number of very large-scale set pieces.
I’m grumpy, old and dyspeptic, but even I came away from this production with a smile on my face: every participant was obviously enjoying themselves and, equally importantly, the wolf was captured so you can walk around Cranfield in safety—until next year of course.
Olney Camera Club
Meeting information
Oaks Geoff Bacchus
On my fifth birthday I placed a conker in a flower pot on my bedroom window sill and it sprang into growth come April (1940). Eighteen months and a couple of repottings later it was moved out into the garden where I lovingly watched over it until father bought a new house and we duly moved on. Dad had ever encouraged my love of gardening and on selling the first house made a condition
of sale that the tree must not be disturbed.
Some thirty years later, a married man with a few children, I was driving not far from my childhood home and we went along to ‘catch up’. The conker tree was still standing, there had been a change of ownership and the new owners were intrigued to learn that I was the little boy about whom they had learned. The tree now close to forty foot high was soon host to a couple of my kids clambering up through its boughs.
What, you may well ask has this to do with Great Oaks? For answer I must invite you back to my window sill which is now home to a newly sprung Oak Tree which, as I write, is in a pot on my window sill. In time my oak should become far bigger than my conker but I must leave later generations to measure the difference.
When I was a kid we enjoyed the freedom to fall out of trees, to get scratched and bruised as we learned by experience to take and measure risks. Today’s youngsters are deprived of much of that freedom by the idiots of elf’n’ safety, by a raft of regulations arising from Brussels and Whitehall and by a host of compensation lawyers. Our schools are barely free to allow their charges to play simple playground games. What hope our legislators returning the proper liberties of childhood?
The December meeting was the final competition of the year. The results were:
Category: Boke Open
Song Title
The overall winners of the Yearly Competition were:
Next Meeting
Winner:
Joint winners : Lisa Winson
Michael Clark
John Hughes & Lisa Winson
The meeting is in the Olney Centre on Wednesday, February 26th at 20.00 hours and is a talk on Flash Photography by Dan Evans. Please come along if you are interested, all are welcome. Please contact Gina on 01234 711657 for further details.
1st
2nd
3rd Joint:
Lisa winson
Michael Clark
John Hughes; Roy Bird
Phonebox Magazine 37