Celebrating the past in the present...

Sam Winder is our guest blogger - always a joy

Recently, to reflect upon each day, I started a diary. However, tonight, instead of an entry I intend to write a blog for a number of reasons:
- Today was an utter shambles
- The only thing worth writing about was Sapphire
- The above is rather useful as guest blogs are a weekly necessity.
So, instead of wallowing in self pity, I have decided it would be more constructive to write about Sapphire Company in all its wonderfulness.

Now, perhaps the exasperation that I tried to demonstrate in the opening of my blog was enough to show you how much of a relief it was to return to Sapphire this week. With the first few days of school behind me being reunited with everyone was a joy. Gee and I had a little conversation upon my arrival about our usual topics (which I will not bore you with) then Brittany and I greeted each other in a typically bold fashion before I explained to Grace the thought process behind the choosing of my new deodorant.  Of course, other greetings were made, but these are an example of the little catching up sessions that you take for granted when they are provided on a weekly basis but miss so dearly after 6 weeks and 3 days of monotonous school routine.

Catching up lead nicely into best and worst and then into meeting the new people to start this year. Introducing oneself to a room full of 30 people in 10 seconds is something I have become proficient in over the years and luckily the new starters weren’t even phased by such an onslaught of new people. We talked about our funny stories from the holidays, the nicest things we ate and all manner of other things… Always great because I love a good chat (as you may have figured).

There are other good things in the world though, more than chatting I mean. There is, of course, the Bean Game and, a classic, Captain Beaky. I’m not going to dwell too long on the Bean Game as, to put it lightly, I was somewhat out of practice; I fell victim, very early on, to the old “Long Bean/Broad Bean” stratagem. Captain Beaky also saw a return of one team as an M People chorus with “Moving On Up” being the signal of each step towards victory. Though not in the rules, I think it really changes the feel of the game… It’s probably comes down to personal preference though.

So, with all that done, we came to our first read through of Dick Whittington. I would tell you all about the abundance of hilariously funny moments and the highly tuned sense of wit that Sapphire Company shared within the circle… Alas, you will simply have to wait until Christmas. It is fair to say though that this is possibly the most ridiculous play yet. If you thought Rumpelstiltskin was a little bizarre, you may think that you have fallen down a rabbit hole rather than driven to Castleford this year. That was just one of the casts too, with two sets of casting this year, there will surely be an entirely new set of discoveries with the next read through.  Exciting times!