So the session begins and it looks like we’re concentrating on scenes that are incorporating three of the five characters, Tom, Mark and to begin with especially Ghandi (and one of his speeches).
One of the two actors that have been working on ‘Ghandi’ takes to the centre of the workspace and two other actors join him for reactions and to give him something to play off.

Ghandi is fed his first line of his speech by someone from the side of the room, whilst the other actor playing Ghandi has seconds to offer up a transitive verb (TV) for him to play in order to affect the two other actors playing Mark and Tom e.g. to make angry, to stroke, to inspire, to depress. The actor offering up the TV’s is told he must try to come up with the best choice possible as quickly as possible.. no time to think.

The next experiment is pretty much the same as the first except there’s an added element just to notch things up a note. The actor goes through the speech in the same way again but he’s also now given a number from 1 to 10 (‘1’ being the weakest and ‘10’ the strongest). Now he has to deliver his fed line and his TV at varying levels of intensity depending on what number he’s given.

The third process is Ghandi now facing the same two other actors but behind them is a fellow actor who has his eyes closed and someone covering his ears. He proceeds to go through a speech in his head (any speech, Hamlet or somink..). Ghandi is the only person that can see the physical gestures being offered up by our deaf and blind actor as he performs his speech without speaking. Ghandi proceeds to copy those gestures while delivering his speech to the two other characters. It was really funny to watch but also quite freaky to see the actor speaking the text (he was being fed) while doing completely random physical gestures and yet so much of it seemed to fit perfectly and suit what he was saying. The moral of the story is, you really can do anything and nothings wrong…or in the word of William Wallace “FREEDOOOOOM!”

The fourth experiment was the same as the previous one but this time Ghandi delivers the lines of the speech as they are being fed to him, while the two other characters are offering up physical movements that they are copying from two other deaf, blind and mute actors going through a monologue in their heads. Ghandi has to allow these movements to affect his delivery… or rather to inform his delivery.

Next. New players for the three characters jump into the centre. They receive fed lines and TV’s from around the perimeter of the room and play out the scene with only one simple job at hand… Be with the other two actors and serve THEM. Don’t consider what you’d like to portray. Just allow everything that’s being offered up to you to affect, change or move THEM.

Now things get quirkier. The three actors who are being fed their lines go through the scene. In their peripheral vision they each have someone allocated to them. This person has their eyes closed and listening to their ipods as they again physically express their individual tune. These movements are copied while the scene is played out.

We attack the same scene yet again but this time only one actor copies a blind ipod mover as his lines are being fed to him. The other actor holds the script and reads his lines in but he cant hear what’s happening in the scene because he’s got headphones blaring. As a result his voice is much louder than anyone else. The third actor is just simply following the scene while being fed his lines.

The three actors now are fed their lines and once they have decided on a TV of their own choosing, they deliver said line. The other two actors have no idea what the TV was. They just receive whatever’s coming at them and before they speak their next line, they first express how they’ve been made to feel. E.g. “you're boring me/you're amusing me/you're patronising me” etc… On hearing this information, the actor who has just spoken last, tries to improve the situation with his next line. So if for example he was trying to inspire but the person actually felt patronised, he would work to improve that.

What next?...ah yes “Secret Locations”. All three actors have been whispered their own secret location. One is told that he’s on a boat with close friends. It’s night. the boat gently rocks and the stars sparkle above. Another is at a baby shower, and the third was 87 years old. The feeder’s feed, the player’s play and the scene yet again has a totally different flavour and dynamic.

Next “secret Characters” One is playing the scene as a Jack in the box, another is a Nun and the other is a 14yr old scally wag. Nobody knows what everyone else has been told to do.

Lastly, “Secret Famous People”. The scene is again played out. One actor is Woody Allen, the other is Tom Cruise and the third is Sly Stallone. Nobody knows who the other two are pretending to be… that is until they start to drop those impressions and there’s no doubt in the room that the talents of the factory members run deeep!