Acting It

Reminder to self: never offer to act in anything again. I've trod the boards several times this month, shocking my fellow cast members last week  with my hammy sergeant-major. This morning I played "Mike", the grumpy hubbie in our marvellous Christmas play (Whaddya mean, " You didn't need to act, then?").

In my youth, I was in a little theatre troupe called "Ripples": we toured the land presenting our little Gospel tales. We performed on the stage of the Pavilion Theatre, Glasgow and the BBC recorded  and broadcast our work (I even have a video of the latter, which will remain sealed in a vault until I go to to heaven). It's been lovely to do a bit of acting again, but far more stressful than I remember it being.

Tonight at 8pm is our Carols by Candlelight Service. Another superb team has been working on this. I always find this a tough one to prepare for and every year I struggle to put some thoughts together for the talk. This year has been no exception, but I hope I've been given something worth saying.

I suppose that, in some ways, my acting has been replaced by preaching. Preachers should always have a good sense of the dramatic and an ability to project, so those experiences in the past have all been useful. The main difference being that preachers should always be true to themselves and express what God has impressed upon them, not just what they think. I hope I do that tonight.

Comments

[ryan]

Of course, the other overlap is that all clergy are camp, so it's unsurprising that many - like yourself- have a gift for (and experience with) the theatrical! o{]:-)

As for Carol Service:I know we often go with a modernised Mary and the like, but do you never fancing donning a grey beard and doing a God-As-Charlton-Heston style sketch? You could smite people! I think that would be cool.

[GadgetVicar]

Oh, I've done the Charlton Heston thing, Ryan, believe me.

All clergy are camp? I think that's wishful thinking! Or......is it being made compulsory now?

[ryan]

Cool!

Surely it's been an unacknowledged-prerequisite for centuries!;-) Come on : name ONE non-camp clergyman?

[Beat Attitude]

The "MD", of course.