The Woman In Black is a long running horror story at the Fortune Theater in London It is based on a novel by Susan Hill and adapted for theater by Stephen Mallatrat. It is a thrilling ghost story that anyone can go back to each running season even if it will make the audience jump out of seats in fright. Imagine the stage is not so big and the theater is a bit small and appears eerie, even going to the toilets alone will be a creepy experience.

The story is about a solicitor trying to tell his ghostly experiences as he tried to wind up the affairs of a recently deceased woman. The woman, however, has led a reclusive life in a remote and mysterious house which is accessible only during the day. This solicitor could not get the help of the locals who would not get near the house nor hear any mention of the woman’s name. They believed the house is cursed. The story begins as the solicitor recalls the frightening nights he spent at the house. There are bone-chilling run-ins with the black-cloaked woman, a mysterious cart and buggy, and a mysterious room. The high pitched screams send the audience into frenzy.

Robin Herford directed the original cast of The Woman In Black in 1987 when it started at the Stephen Joseph Theater in Scarborough, and has been directing the subsequent casts. Christopher Ravenscroft and Sebastian Harcombe, the latest casts, are the 23^rd combination of stars. This constant change in cast partly makes The Woman In Black a brilliant thriller that every theater goers must see. This play really has the right Project Packaging you need in a play, ticking all the right boxes of entertainment.

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When learning drama improvisation, it is important to start at the very beginning. We need to free our voices to respond from our gut. Our inability to respond instinctively is part of a self editing process that begins with our parents calling us ’silly'or ’naughty'and continues through our education.The most basic game is a ’sound around’. The actors stand in a circle should to shoulder looking straight ahead. The first person starts, turns their head to the right, and makes a noise at the person next to them. As soon as that person ’receives the impulse'they turn their head to the next person and make a noise. Beginning actors who are nervous, will actually plan in their head what noise to make, and make coherent sounds like ’bark'’woof'’tweet’. The role of the moderator of this game is to work with the group to create a quicker and quicker pace which will circumvent this thinking process. As soon as a beginning actor learns what a true impulse feels like, this physical experience can be transferred into all of their other improvisation work. All too often, however, the authentic aims of early improvisation games are skimmed over, and the authentic physical experience of transmitting a true impulse never happens. This, in my opinion, is one of the reasons there are so many horrible improvisors! How the moderator works with the team of actors to release that innate impulse through improvisation games is a highly developed skill that comes from years of experience. Good teachers are like yogis, gurus, and midwives helping the actor give birth to the clown inside. Perhaps, they are also like a psychotherapist, helping to undue years of damage from the state education system.

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Dear Elodie and Carys,

Hi! I hope you are excited about the show this saturday - I know we are as it is our very last one! If you do find time to draw a picture for Lola, we will make sure that she gets it. And if you can make sure you so the following, maybe Lola can hang it in her bedroom for the show!

Please ensure that the picture:

• Is on a A3 piece of paper that is portrait, (as in with the longest side going vertically - like a poster!)
• That there are no written words on the paper at all

Great! Whether you have time to draw a picture or not, we look forward to meeting you both on Saturday after the show!

 - Sanjay, Lola the rest of the Charlie and Lola Team.

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Just wanted to say a big hello from all of us here in London.. Words can not describe… but hopefully a video can! Click Below:

CLICK HERE NOW TO WATCH THE VIDEO
(or right click and then click “save as” to save it to your computer)

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Of course sometimes things just go wrong and there is nothing that you can do about it but pick up the pieces afterwards… of try to!

There have been some truely excellent moments where things have gone a bit wonkey. There is a moment with the Sta fish, where the star fish climbs to the top of the whales head, and then get knocks off by the whales water spirt. Normally the star goes shooting into the air spins around and then disapears off stage. This one time, the stick that opperates the star fish snapped, and so the star fish went flying in to the audience! All I could do was re animate it, and have the star fish do an impression of doctor Ziodburg from Futurama and run off the stage in fear! It was really funny!

The one thing that has not happenned yet (and god forbid) is the butterflys. There is a magical moment where the audience say “I can do magic” and summon a host of butterflys to fall flying from the ceiling. I dread the day that it doesn’t work… It is a credit to nick out stage manager that it has been so consistantly good to date!

Anyway, gotta go. I’m thinking about picking up a pair of brooks running shoes to start running into work to get a little extra exercise. Not sure if that is better of worse from me than cycling, but apparently I have a runners body so I thought I might give it a try!

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I want to share a real moment of awe that happenned the other day not of my own creation, but of the actors I am working with. Charlie and Lola is all about puppetry, and as such the main characters are not us, but instead are the 2 dimentional objects that we have the task of breathing life into. The act of giving these objects life in this way is just wonderful, and there is a real magic when your audience watches Charlie or Lola and they see not the puppet, but just the actual characters themselves! They stop to even be aware that the characters are inannimate objects, and instead they really do just see Charlie and Lola!

The other week, our director Roman Stefanski was giving us notes on the show. He was explaining ways in which we could improve the show as well as pointing out our mistakes! That’s his job, and in this job without good critisism we would never be able to hope to achieve the levels of perfection that we are striving for. Whilst Roman was talking, Susan Harrison had the puppet of Lola on her lap, She was holding Lola by the handles as she would whilst animating her on the stage. Her focus was completely on Roman, of that there is no doubt. She was paying no attention at all on the puppet she was holding - so used to carrying Lola around why would she? Then something happenned that for me was really magical.

As Roman moved about the room, Lola followed him with her eyes. Lola (not susan) watched attentively and patiently as Roman gave his notes, even at one point subconciously adjucting her sitting position using one hand to steady herself. Whilst this was happenning, Susan I believe was completely unaware of this. So in tune with her puppet was Sue at that moment, that she animated her without even thinking about it! At that moment, I could have believed that Sue was not infact a puppetier, but that Lola as a puppet was indeed alive! Lola moved, watched and behaved as alive as anyone else in that room, and for those moments I sat in awe at the situation in which had Lola stood up and walked off with no assistance at all I would not have been any more surprised!

This level of achievement - to animate a puppet fully in the moment without conciously making any effort at all - is something that as an actor fairly new to this level of puppetiering I am completely in awe of. I can not explain how amazing it was to see Lola so alive. The bar has been set, and it is achieveable. I hope that with a little work, Charlie will be able to join Lola the day she gets up and walks off stage of her own accord without any assistance from another human!

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Dear Ava,

Please watch the above video, and here at the charlie and lola show we are really looking forward to meeting you! If you do have time to make Lola a picture, if you could make sure that it is on a white piece of A3 size paper and does not have any words on it, that would be brilliant! Lola is very excited to seeing it when you finish it.

See you soon Ava!

Charlie and Lola.

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Ho Hum!

,                                                                                                                        This is Roman now wandering

around

on his page  . . . . !                         ?

.                                                                                ?

?

.                                                                                                                               ?

.                                                                                                                                                ?

??                                                                                 ?

yep!

looks pretty blank

.                                                                                                                                                    from here

I’d better come back

and write something

SOON!

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