We ran a workshop with Sefton Older People's Forum. This is Harry and Marion. I'm not saying they laughed from beginning to end, and the group is comprised of 17 other citizens - but we had a laugh.
I promised to deliver a coffee and cake to their doorsteps. A mince pie for Christmas even. One pair were in the Highlands calling in from their car. I think I am doing my bit during the pandemic, but I may have overpromised.
We wanted to make the objects more visible and discovered that using a second camera via the phone expanded the feeling of space in our call. It allowed us to play between Richard and Kurt again. I phoned in while the previous speaker was still talking. He was talking about the 2021 census I think, and about surveys, participant data etc. So it struck me that the group are like consumer representatives, and after him, they would not necessarily be up for being playful.
We did an introduction to WAYK, following on from the object naming game we got from Phillipe Gaulier, who got it from ... who got it from.... This brain-muddling game had been a success at the Performer's Network workshop, after all. But there's the trap. It's another thing with 19 people. And there was another level of intelligence working itself on the game. The substitute names were very clever and contained further associations.
We had some fun with virtual backgrounds, playing with the idea of an intrusion from Kurt, who takes over Richard’s office. And we were held up by the distraction from participant who took a phone call and left his mic. on. We are familiar with this kind of technological chaos. See Chapter 7 in the Routledge Comedy reader. I can send you a copy of the chapter if you'd like to read more.
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