See if you can spot me in this cast photograph for the Little Theatre's production of "Allo' Allo'" (based on the hugely popular BBC TV comedy series - itself a parody of the 1970s BBC drama series "Secret Army") which I was a part of back in September 2017. My wife directed the play and we had full houses each night, and were forced to make the "members only" performance prior to the first night a paid performance to accommodate those who couldn't get tickets...
I hear and read a lot about the drama that happens on #ufotwitter and elsewhere. UFOlogy seems to thrive on it - especially when there's little news or activity on the releases front. Sometimes it seems as though everyone is at each other's throats, other times it's down to someone exercising poor judgement or a distinctly poor choice of words. There always seems to be a bit of blue touch paper just waiting to be lit...
Recently, the amount of aggro has seemingly gone off the scale. So, in an attempt to lighten the mood, here's a picture of some real "drama". My wife is very fond of theatre. She's been known to act, she also taught it during a previous existence as a teacher and has run drama workshops. A member of a theatre group based on Tyneside (founded in 1920!), she's performed on stage, helped behind the scenes in numerous plays and has even directed several, including ones written by her beloved Harold Pinter. I was roped into becoming Stage Manager for "The Dumb Waiter" back in 2015 which she directed.
In 2017, she took on the job of directing Allo' Allo', the stage version of the highly successful BBC TV comedy series, which for those old enough to recognise was a p*ss-take of "Secret Army", an equally popular 1970s drama series about resistance "evasion" lines in Occupied Europe. Knowing my interest in WW2, my wife had me coming up with suitable posters for set dressing, and I even wrote a scene for the start of the show which had a hidden radio made from a baguette and two onions put together in keeping with the occasionally bawdy nature of the TV show, and a German soldier reading a proclamation telling the audience to shut off their mobile phones otherwise they would be shot as spies...
And if that wasn't all, Jo had me acting in the performance as well. Not something I'd taken to, although I had done bit parts in a few things beforehand, usually just a few lines, maybe 10 if I was feeling bold. But this one had 50! What had I let myself in for?