WINNING WAYS

Are we having fun yet?

They say laughter is the best medicine, but how often in our working lives do we remember to take and to offer it? In this exploration of the use of humour, Keith Park hopes to inspire you to spread a little happiness as you go by
ome years ago, I used to visit a group in a special school where one of the teenagers was thought to be dying. He did not die, and is still alive and well, but at the time everyone was understandably in a state of extreme stress. The teenager lets call him John would be asleep in his beanbag with at least one member of staff looking for signs of life and of course no-one could fully concentrate on anything else. (Why this was happening in school is another story.) So, to cut a long story short, we tried an interactive version of the pantomime Sleeping Beauty. John, on his beanbag, was placed at the centre of the circle of staff and pupils and all the exchanges literally went over his head. The challenge we set ourselves was to laugh. We came up with the idea of doing the pantomime in the style of one of the games from the TV programme Whose Line Is It Anyway? where participants were challenged to perform Hamlet, for example, in the style of Philip Marlow, Julian Clary, Frank Sinatras My Way and so on. Every episode of Sleeping Beauty was done in a different character and changed from week to week: John Wayne, Del-boy (from Only Fools and Horses) and, quite memorably, Darth Vadar, which was just a series of heavy breathing. My favourite was in one of the later episodes when the castle gardener finally discovers Sleeping Beauty. The words we used are a parody of Humphrey Bogarts character Rick in the film Casablanca: Of all the gardens In all the castles In all the world And shes asleep in mine Heres looking at you kid Mmmwah! The sound effect of the final line was to accompany a kiss being blown across the circle. It was all extremely silly, which was of course the aim. At the end of the activity, one of the staff said, Thanks for that, I needed a laugh. Result! Although this situation was extreme, I think her comment is true for all work situations. Many of the schools I have visited are excellent, but - perhaps because of paperwork, Ofsted inspections, or the demand to demonstrate progress - things often seem very serious.

READ THIS IF YOU WANT TO OFFER AGE APPROPRIATE ACTIVITIES ENGAGE CLIENTS AT AN EMOTIONAL LEVEL PUT A SMILE ON YOUR FACE

Interactive Storytelling Interactive storytelling began as a way of including people with severe and profound learning disabilities in drama, poetry and storytelling activities. It is based upon three principles. The first is that apprehension precedes comprehension. A character in Oscar Wildes An Ideal Husband says I never go to concerts by Strauss. The music is always in German. The joke is quite instructive: what do we mean by a proper understanding of something? When we listen to Beethovens Fifth, look at Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa or go to a Shakespeare play, are we understanding them? Nicola Grove and I have suggested (Grove & Park, 1996) that poetry and stories can be enjoyed by anyone, irrespective of whether they can translate them into contemporary prose to demonstrate understanding. One of my favourite examples is Jabberwocky its a very famous and popular poem but can anyone comprehend it? The second principle is that affect and engagement are central to responses to literature. One of the first times I did Macbeth in a school, we recited the famous witches spell Double double toil and trouble with the lights out. When we finished one of the pupils shivered, stood up, and said, Lights on. This

Knock knock...

was clearly a direct emotional response to the text. Similarly, there was much laughter when finishing a section of Twelfth Night when Sir Toby and the others are calling Malvolio rude names, the final one of which is sheep-biter followed by everyone bleating like a sheep. The head teacher walked into the room and was quickly surrounded by a group of pupils who repeated the litany of Shakespearean abuse, ending with the sheep noise, then followed by a lot of laughter (from the head too, fortunately!) The third principle is that recital and performance are valid means of experiencing stories, drama and poetry. Instead of trying to get people to look at a book, the primary focus can be on performing the story and by making it possible for everyone to participate in storytelling in some way. We, quite literally, do the book and enjoy the music of words in performance, and look for and encourage affective responses to the piece of work we are doing. So, having decided that exploring humour was an important project, I then came across the problem of appropriate texts, in particular for teenagers and adults with complex needs. Several years ago I visited a certain special school and joined a group of teenagers with profound and multiple learning disabilities. I watched in dismay as the teacher sang If youre happy and

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you know it clap your hands followed by Five fat sausages sizzling in a pan. I should add that an Ofsted inspector was also observing the lesson and described it as outstanding. (I have a short poem about Ofsted inspections that cannot be performed in schools!) A discussion of age-appropriateness and literacy would take up too much space here, but surely it must be boring and unimaginative to be doing the same songs and poems throughout the school years. If I had a pound coin for every time I have seen Eric Carles The Very Hungry Caterpillar in a teenage classroom, I would be quite rich. So I decided to investigate literature and, where necessary, adapt it for use in schools. Here are a few examples of what I hope is the use of humour. and Canterbury Cathedral. On our last visit to Westminster Abbey in January we performed the story of The Calming Of The Waters one of the miracles of Jesus - which has a touch of Tommy Cooper to it. Jesus falls asleep on the boat and there is a great storm. The disciples are afraid and they wake up Jesus. He tells the winds and waters to calm down, which they immediately do. The last section goes One word from him And thats a fact It all went stumm We was gobsmacked! What is he like? We know hes a Really wicked Diamond geezer! This Jesus bloke Got up and spoke And the sea went flat Just like that! Many people of course would not know about Tommy Cooper, but it doesnt seem to matter. Those who did were quickly doing impersonations of him when repeating his catchphrase Just like that! It is quite surreal to witness a Bible story in cockney rhyming slang being performed in a cathedral in the style of Tommy Cooper. One of the clergy at Rochester Cathedral came up to me afterwards and said, Do you know, it is quite lovely to hear laughter in a cathedral. c) The Brothers Grimm Another recent topic has been Grimm Takes which consists of new versions of some of the famous stories. Here is the start of Rumpelstiltskin: A Case Study in Anger Management, which seemed an appropriate title given that, at the end of the story in some versions, he tears himself in half in anger. Psychiatry Thats what they said I had a bad place In my head Anger management My shrink told me I need Behaviour Therapy Cos mum and dad To their shame Gave me this Revolting name And I really Got the hump When we went out Dad called me Rump d) Shakespeare Most Shakespearean text is in iambic pentameter (a ten beat line, alternating long short long short), which is rather long to perform in call and response, but extracts can be easily divided into shorter sections. This can also give people a direct experience of a Shakespeare workshop. The Taming Of The Shrew is a difficult play. Petruchio, who tames Kate, says some very uncomfortable and unpleasant things about women, so I decided to match extracts of Shakespearean text with aphorisms and observations in contemporary feminist literature. Here is the first episode; Kates final two lines are her response to Petruchios patronising banter: You are called plain Kate Bonny Kate Kate the cursed Kate of Kate Hall Super-dainty Kate Therefore Kate Myself am moved To woo thee for my wife. A woman needs a man like A fish needs a bicycle! Finally, in the last episode, Kate appears to be tamed or is she? This episode is performed in a very over-obsequious way, culminating in the famous lines spoken by Bette Davis in the film All About Eve: Thy husband is thy lord Thy life Thy keeper Thy sovereign Place your hands Below your husbands foot And fasten your seatbelts Its going to be a bumpy night! e) Hans Christian Andersen Together with stories by the brothers Grimm, some schools are exploring new versions of stories by Hans Christian Andersen. Here is a new version of his story The Red Shoes where the little girls red shoes are touched by a mysterious stranger who says Dance, red shoes! All night, all day! Dance all London Come what may! So off she dances, all over London: First a boogaloo At Waterloo Then a saraband Along The Strand A quadrille At Notting Hill At Pimlico I stubbed my toe! And so on until she finds a shoe repair shop (Oh! Cobblers!) where her shoes are cut off (and not her feet as in the gruesome original), and, as they dance away, she says: But I dont care Just let them go Im going home For physio. f) Homer Some years ago Nicola Grove and I wrote Odyssey Now with Homers Odyssey as the basis for a series of drama games (Grove & Park, 1996). I decided to re-visit Homer and look at making a verse account of some of his adventures that happened on his long journey

Whos there?..

a) Pantomime Pantomime is a very popular art form and is perceived as being appropriate for people of all ages. It can contain song and dance, poetry, slapstick comedy, political satire, and of course terrible jokes and puns. Three years ago The Churchill Theatre in Bromley (south east London) was putting on Mother Goose for its Christmas pantomime season and the theatre staff kindly allowed us to use the stage and perform our interactive script in front of the spectacular scenery of the backdrop. In episode 2 of the script, Priscilla the goose lays a golden egg and Mother Goose is rich. This activity is easier to do than to describe. Everyone speaks the words together, and then from the second verse, the words are replaced by sound effects, until it is nothing more than a sequence of sound effects: Priscilla the goose has laid a golden egg (repeat this line 3 times) And Mother Goose can put it in her bank account! This is then repeated, but with bank account replaced by a sound effect of everyone shouting out dingalingaling! Priscilla the goose has laid a golden egg (repeat 3 times) And Mother Goose can put it in her dingalingaling! Then the word egg is replaced by a sound effect so it becomes Priscilla the goose has laid a golden squork! (repeat 3 times) And Mother Goose can put it in her dingalingaling! And so on until everything is sound effects: Oooh! Honk! Urgh! Ching! Squork! And Mother Goose can put it in her dingalingaling! This is of course totally frivolous but it is great fun to see people wiping tears of laughter from their eyes. b) Bible Stories in Cockney Rhyming Slang The Bible Stories in Cockney Rhyming Slang project continues to develop, and groups from various schools have now visited Westminster Abbey, St Pauls Cathedral, Rochester Cathedral

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home from Troy to Ithaca. The Laestrygonians are a race of giant cannibals. Odysseus and his men land on their island and some of the sailors are eaten alive. The humour is rather ghoulish: Because we are So gigantic Our appetites Are elephantic So at the risk Of sounding louche Humans to us Are amuse-bouches Eating humans They are only an Hors doeuvre for a Laestrygonian g) Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer is often referred to as the father of English poetry and The Canterbury Tales, written in the 1380s and 1390s, is his most famous work. It was written in Middle English and there is some debate as to how the words might have been pronounced 600 years ago, so I decided to try a version in contemporary English. The Wife of Baths Tale is the story of a knight accused of a terrible crime. In the original text it is rape, but I have omitted that word as it is difficult to use in school settings. However, an unspecified crime makes it more of a mystery. The knight is sentenced to death but the queen gives him a reprieve of one year and a day to find the answer to her question: what do women most desire? He travels the world and searches in vain for the answer until he finds an old woman in the woods who says she knows the answer and will tell him on condition that he promises to do what she asks of him. He appears before the queen on the appointed day and tells her: Women desire Generally To control their men Totally. This is followed by the verse in which the knight says what women want and it usually gets a laugh and a cheer from female staff: To be the boss The governor-wife To dominate In married life He gives the correct answer and then the old woman says that he must fulfill his promise to obey her, and this means they must be married. He grudgingly consents, and then she gives him a choice: she can be old, ugly and faithful, or young, beautiful and cheating. Which is it to be? The knight, now wiser, replies that he will abide by her decision. This is the correct answer that breaks the spell over the old woman who is transformed into a young and beautiful bride and, in true fairy tale style, they live happily ever after, following this important principle: Admit the truth Dont be a fool In a marriage Women rule!

Boom boom...

One of the most effective uses of humour I have ever seen was with Tim, who was seven at the time. Tim uses a step-by-step communication aid. His teacher Sheila, on her birthday, recorded a message on Tims BigMack: Hey! Listen Everyone! Its Sheilas birthday today. Shes 21 again! Then Tim, assisted by another member of staff, visited all the classrooms in the school, and played the message to everyone in the room. It was a great laugh, and was a brilliantly simple and effective use of humour. And of course it made Tim, a switch user, the centre of attention.

So maybe we could all try to raise a laugh occasionally or, even better, actively try to introduce laughter to the working day
Another example of humour that can be easily done is poetry ambush. I tried this with three teenagers in an excellent school that was nevertheless quite intense and serious. We practised a few very short poems by Ogden Nash, and then went around school ambushing members of staff. This consisted of rushing up to the target, surrounding them and then quickly reciting A curious bird/The Pelican/Whose beak holds more/ Than his belly can and then rushing off again, preferably with a snigger. The shortest and quickest poem was Ogden Nash again: Parsleyis gharsly. Another type of ambush involved knock knock jokes, which are consistently so awful they often get a laugh or at least a groan. (This must be one of the worst: Knock knock /Whos there? / Wurlitzer / Wurlitzer Who? / Wurlitzer one for the money, two for the show...) This is only a brief introduction to some of the work being done on the use of humour and the adaptations of classical literature. Anyone who would like to find out more detail, or to visit one of the workshops, is welcome to contact me. I have also listed some publications on aspects of storytelling. So maybe we could all try to raise a laugh occasionally or, even better, actively try to introduce laughter to the working day. Perhaps we could subvert the deadly earnest BBC Radio 4s Thought For The Day and have SLTP a Joke For The Day instead? Keith Park (email keithpark1@onetel.com) is an advisory teacher, poet and performer who works with children and adults with multi-sensory impairments in a variety of educational and community settings. His Winter 2009 article Extra! Extra! Read all about it! is now available at www. speechmag.com/Resources/Reprints.

Bibliography Grove, N. & Park, K. (1996) Odyssey Now. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Grove, N. & Park, K. (2001) Macbeth In Mind. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Park, K. (2001) Interactive Storytelling for Deafblind Children, Deafblind Perspectives 8(3), pp.5-9. Available at: http://www.tr.wou.edu/tr/ dbp/pdf/may01.PDF. (Accessed: 11/11/10). Park, K. (2001) Interactive Storytelling: A Multidisciplinary Plot, Speech & Language Therapy in Practice Summer, pp.4-7. Park, K. (2002) Macbeth: a poetry workshop on stage at Shakespeares Globe Theatre, British Journal of Special Education 29(1), pp.14-19. Gallimore, A., Savill, M. & Park, K. (2002) Interactive Storytelling and AAC with People with High Support Needs, Communication Matters 16(3), pp.25-27. Park, K. (2002) Switching on to Shakespeare, Speech and Language Therapy in Practice Spring, pp.4-6. Park, K. (2003) The Tempest on stage at Shakespeares Globe Theatre, The SLD Experience 37, pp.27-31. Park, K. (2003) Shakespeares Twelfth Night on stage at the Globe Theatre, The SLD Experience 38, pp.3-7. Park, K. (2004) Interactive Storytelling in the art gallery and the theatre, The SLD Experience 39, pp.3-7. Gouda, N. & Park, K. (2004) Interactive Storytelling: Multicultural Perspectives, Communication Matters 18(3), pp.33-35. Park, K. (2004) Interactive Storytelling. Milton Keynes: Speechmark. Park, K. (2004) Interactive Storytelling: from the book of Genesis, British Journal of Special Education 31(1), pp.16-23. Park, K. (2004) Shakespeare goes to Harrow, The SLD Experience 41, pp.3-7. Gouda, N. & Park, K. (2005) One Night of Shakespeare, The SLD Experience 43, pp.9-12. Park, K. (2009) Bible Stories in Cockney Rhyming Slang. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

REFLECTIONS DO I REALISE IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO BE SERIOUS TO BE PROFESSIONAL? DO I SEE THAT HUMOUR CAN BE INCLUSIVE, ILLUMINATING AND INFECTIOUS JUST LIKE THAT? DO I HAVE A JOKE FOR TODAY?
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SPEECH & LANGUAGE THERAPY IN PRACTICE WINTER 2010