The final “La la la, lalalalaaaa” ended and I had a
tremendous lump in my throat. The dress
rehearsal for Bugsy Malone finished. The
kids on the stage held their jazz-hands pose and the gathered teachers and kids
from lower classes applauded and cheered.
I had to quickly wipe a tear from my eye. I may have to do that again just now.
School shows are magnificent. They are an obvious celebration of the talent
and the determination of the children who get up on stage and place themselves
in an extremely vulnerable position. The
courage taken to step up, don a costume and belt out a line or a song is
enormous. Its effect was right there on
the stage, right in front of me.
It was there again at a local fair, when the kids gathered
to sing a few of the songs from the show to entice an audience for their
performances, this week. You could feel
the effect and you could hear it; not just in the voices of the children
singing but in the “Wow!” that greeted the first soloist who sang. They ran out of wows. Each soloist in turn was beautiful and
beaming with confidence. You could put
it down to childish naivety but these are all on the cusp of adolescence, all
in the transition from primary to secondary, all very certain that they are
going to be uncertain in a month’s time and they walk across the threshold of a
new school. If any one group of kids had
the excuse to be shy, it was this lot.
They weren’t though. They were
both loud and proud. They were
magnificent.
For all of you who did, the flashbacks to shows of your own
may have already started. Daughter was
desperately excited to tell me they were going to be performing Bugsy; she knew
I’d been in it at school too - just over thirty years ago, now. And I remembered nearly every piece of
dialogue and nearly every lyric. The
brain is a very curious machine. Then
again, allowing positive, pleasurable memories to be trapped for replaying
isn’t very curious at all, I suppose.
I know there’s a comment about living in the past here, too
but I’m too much of a coward to face trying to answer that one, just yet.
It is a proper school show too: the joyful and deliberate
presentation of a bunch of amateurs having fun and feeling the pressure to
entertain whilst also believing, much like Blousey, that they’re all on their
way to Hollywood. It is easy to pick the
Britain’s Got Talent aspirees, the kids who want to “act” and those who’ve
taken a part for a laugh and who can barely contain themselves on stage. The talent on show is genuinely astounding.
I hope that each of these children look back on this show
with the warmth and fond memories I look back on my Bugsy. It isn’t just isn’t the time on stage, of
course, it is the fierce bonds of friendship you thought would never be broken,
the time when you were master of your universe.
It is bathing in the adulation of the echoes of applause you received;
applause given with affection and relief and appreciation bundled together in
that unique package that is the school show audience. Parents, like me, who love seeing their child
taking these steps, who have eyes for just one performer on stage but who are
then won over by the ensemble and who see another kid in a different light;
where did that voice come from? How did
she know the timing on that gag? When did he become so slick a mover?
For every lobster in a Nativity there’s thousands of
Tallulahs and Blouseys out there carrying the song, thousands of kids who’ve
been told to “Quit doin’ that, Knuckles!” or fallen off their chair at the
mention of Dandy Dan. This collective
wallow in nostalgia and rose tint is a wonderful thing. Remember when all you had
to do was give a little love? And there
I go again, having to do that tear wiping away thing. “La, la, la, lalalalaaaa.”
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