Random anecdotes

[TottyMcGee]

The idea of this thread is to give us somewhere to post our own pet anecdotes and funny stories, the ones that we always end up telling at parties and which our friends are bloody sick of hearing all the time. These can be splosh related, completely off-topic or vaguely on-topic if you care enough.

Allow me to start with one from my schooldays;

This happened when as a weirdo sixth former doing music and theatre studies (with more actual music involved in the latter than the former) I was given the job of musical director for the school production of "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" and asked to compose a musical score for it. What I came up with was a score performed by two roving musicians in a pit filled with synthesizers, percussion instruments and anything else I was able to raid from the music department and with a bunch of whispered chants in a gibberish "Narnian" language. The particular section of the score that concerns this story came at the end of the first half, when the Snow Queen delivers her villainous tirade over a harsh synth drone, ending with the line "...and we shall march on the Stone Table!". On this line I'd wallop the crap out of a Big Drum to co-incide with the blackout, to bring the half to a dramatic conclusion.

On this particular night as the crowd filed in a family arrived and sat their five year old daughter on the end of the row, right next to the Big Drum. The girl who was performing with me on that night pointed this out and asked that I go a little easy on the drum this time in case I frightened the kid. I gave her a vague assurance that I would indeed compromise my artistic integrity in this way and resist the temptation to give this poor kid nightmares for her forseeable future, the lights dimmed and the performance began.

So come the end of the first half, the drone hit, the Snow Queen marched down the aisle and began her villainous speech. The speech reached its climax as the music swelled and I sat with my drumsticks poised over the Big Drum as I waited for the cue.

"...and we shall march on the Stone Table!"

**BAAABADUMMMM!!!!!*** (blackout)

The room was suddenly silent and pitch black. When out of the darkness there drifted a small voice from a seat right next to the Big Drum;

"...mum-eeeee....."

[Chelle]

I used to work behind a bar where one of the things we served were 4 pint jugs of beer (or whatever thay wanted in them), Now on busy night's it was quite usuall to start serving one person let the jugs fill up under the taps, while starting on the next customers order, and if you wern't keeping a close eye on them or got destracted thay would end up overflowing then you'd have beer running onto the floor making a bit of a mess.
Ok you get the general idea, so one night we were a bit short staffed and the bar quickly got rammed full of people, so trying to rush and do umpteen things at the same time, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that one of my 4 pint jugs that was pouring was up to the brim, but heck I was down the other end of the bar, so I has to dash quickly to hit the tap off. Now as I put my hand on the tap I tried to stop myself, the floor being soaked with beer from pervious spills I just went sliding on my ass!.

My hand knocking the jug of larger which landed on top on me as I was lying on my back,, to a chear of all of the people at the bar, who were now leaning over to see me lying in a big pool on the floor, asking if I was allright. which I was apart from being totally wet.
Think I decided to carry on serving for a while, then I borrowed some white trousers of the kitchen staff, and a tracksuit top from one of the other girls and got changed in my break.

Though a fun night alltogeather.
Michelle.

[Hayley]

To return to the panto theme, a similar story from Essex.

A friend of mine who lives in Epping invited me to see the panto up there one year. It was Cinderella and being a matinee it was packed with a school party of the local hard nut kids, most of whom were more interested in pissing about than watching the show. Except for one boy who was absolutely caught up in the whole thing and sat or stood with rapt attention throughout. He was mesmerised.

It came to the scene where Cinderella has an invite to the ball but the Ugly Sisters say she can't go, and this boy was standing openmouthed at their nastiness. Then at the end of the scene, one Ugly Sister triumphantly tears up Cinderella's invite and throws it in the air, and Cinders falls to the floor sobbing her heart out and the curtain closes to a dramatic silence (later filled with boos). However during the moment's quiet, the boy fell back into his seat, and all I heard was his hard-as-nails cockney voice sighing:

"Gutted!"

Who says panto doesn't work for kids any more?

Love
Hayley x