Double - Children's Theatre (FMF) - Blog 17 (Evaluation) - 07/12/15

Today was the big day; our first performance of Fantastic Mr Fox! I feel our performance was superb and kept every child entertained. I feel that these are the things which went incredibly well and what we would need to improve on:

Scene 1: 

• great impacting movement and our interaction between each other made the entire scene very comical
• this led to the effect of a believable family
• the transition between this scene and the next was very fluid
• in order to make this scene better, Charlie must engage with the audience more which will strengthen the bond between the protagonist and the audience

Scene 2:

• James' stance as Bunce was lost from the beginning of the scene
• Rob's entrance was very comical
• overall movement across the scene was characterised well
• Rob's mime during Boggis' description was very funny providing a good insight to the character
• James' mime was practically non-existent as he only stood still as Bunce
• my mime was well prepared and was characterised very well
• Ollie's interaction with the audience was very age appropriate and the audience joined in with the Boggis, Bunce and Bean song rather promptly

Scene 3:

• the movement in this scene for all three of us was very characterised superbly and made the characters authentic
• James seemed far too scary for our audience age
• Rob's characterisation was great
• James messed up his lines which left an awkward gap
• the interaction between James and Rob was great throughout
• the punch was hilarious and evoked a positive reaction from the audience
• my entrance to break up the fight was urgent, direct and forceful
• we all maintained a great knowledge of power and status
• my interactive conversation with the audience was amazing and I managed to deal with every response well
• I said the word, "big" quite a lot when describing where Mr Fox lived so I need to vary my vocabulary a lot more
• I forgot to start off the laughing which lost the meaning of the joke

Scene 4:

• the sneaking was very good behind the audience and got their attention
• worryingly, this distracted the audience from Mr Fox's entrance
• Charlie's tail fell off when it wasn't meant to so it wasn't attached properly
• he covered this up well but the cover up wasn't needed as the audience wasn't paying attention to Charlie at all
• Charlie's fried chicken line was far too quick as it wasn't articulated very well and the audience were still focused on the farmers
• the shooting scene was very effective but may have frightened the children, however the movement was the perfect speed and our facial expressions were very exaggerated

Scene 5:

• some of the humour between Mr and Mrs Fox may have been too old for our young audience
• the choral speech between the two fox cubs was very cute and this characterisation created authentic fox cub characters
• James' characterisation could've been better though
• the interaction between the narrator and the children was perfect and every child joined in
• the build up to the race was perfect with nice stretches
• the slow motion race was absolutely hilarious and kept the audience interested throughout with funny facial expressions and over-the-top movement

Scene 6:

• the transition between scenes was unrecognisable
• my voice went part way through the scene but I managed to get it back
• the length of time between each, "Shhhh" moment was perfect and was very funny
• James forgot one of his lines but then said it midway through my speech, this led to mild confusion and a small gap of awkward silence
• the X factor joke seemed a bit lost as it wasn't appropriate to our audience
• the laughing in this scene was better than that of scene 3

Scene 7:

• Lorna maintained her child voice throughout the entire scene
• the physical comedy was great and was very suitable for our audience
• very good interaction with Mr Fox and the audience

Scene 8:

• the movement in the entire scene was perfect and showed the struggle the foxes went through in a comical way
• the child voices were as convincing as ever
• great reactions to finding the huge amount of food

Scene 9:

• very positive reactions from the children
• Lorna's movement, voice and actions as a child were terrific
• "You've really gone and done it now," like the X factor joke, wasn't well matched to the audience

Scene 10:

• the sneaking was great
• movement from Charlie, James and Lorna was consistently great!

Scene 11:

• my entrance as Rabbit was very good and established the character well
• Rob was very late with his, "Thirsty," line but this wasn't a major mistake
• Rob nearly fell over during his entrance
• Lorna's awkward costume change was very good as it didn't grab the audience's attention
• Rat's entrance was very effective at grasping the audience's attention
• Lorna's Rat characterisation was very good and showed a clear contrast from her other character
• everyone poking out of the cider jar line was very funny and amused the audience a lot
• head poking was in time everytime
• one of Charlie's lines was delayed and created an awkward silence
• everyone's exits were effective and fluent

Scene 12:

• the summary of the ending narration was very funny and age appropriate
• the song was very entertaining
• most people needed to sing louder especially Rhiannon in her solo
• everyone needed to sing during the chorus not just 3 people
• Charlie should've started the goodbye as this led to an awkward silence for a few seconds until I started the goodbye

Key notes for improvement:

• James needs to establish his characterisation more
• Rhiannon needs to be louder in her solo in the song
• Charlie needs to make sure his tail is loose enough to take off but not too loose that it falls off
• everyone needs to be aware what their lines are and when they are to avoid awkward silences
• we need to either make sure we get the correct audience we prepared for (5-7 year-olds) or change our performance to better match our comedy with their sense of humour (e.g. switch X Factor for Dora The Explorer)