After researching comedians such as Dawn French and Miranda Hart, I am now certain that the best way for me to convey my idea is through comedy. During my time tabled lesson, we had one task which was to write a diary entry and to perform it  to the class. I decided to talk about my relationship with my sister and how we hated each other when we were younger. Although this was quite a serious matter, I tried to keep it light hearted with my delivery and tone. This serious subject then became quite comical and the feed back from my fellow class mates was brilliant. I want to incorporate this style and delivery into my final performance.

Final Idea

I want to talk to the audience about the ‘ideal image’ that society wants people to conform to, and how I am going to break these so called ‘rules’ in which we have to follow because of our size. I am going to discuss how I have always been big and bullied by my ‘friends’ because I did not look like them. I am then going to talk about my love of dance, and how as a child I was never allowed to dance because of my size and state that just because I’m big, does not mean I cannot dance and then go one to break these ‘rules’ by performing The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. However, the comedic twist is that I cannot actually dance.

Style

Most recently, Dawn French is performing a Solo show in which she describes is “somewhere between a monologue, a play, and an autobiographical slide show” (Logan,2014). I envisioned my performance to take on these qualities, for example, my story is autobiographical and I want to talk to the audience directly. In regards to the ‘slide show’ aspect, I am going to film my rehearsal process which will include footage of me training, exercising and also interviewing friends and family about my idea for my show. I really enjoyed how Major Tom kept referring to the videos and re-enacting the moment on stage and I feel this would be a good approach to use, especially for comedic purposes. I can imagine myself recording my dance lessons, looking awful while trying to learn a ballet piece and completely contrasting that by trying to perform the dance as accurately as possible. I feel that I will need to develop this idea and practice a lot as I only have ten minutes, but I am certain I am going to film my process.

Title

I have been playing around with titles most recently, and came up with the following:

• How To Teach A Hippo To Dance.
• The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fatty
• Keep Going Fatty
• And… Break

After thinking about it, I really liked the play on words with The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fatty and I shall perform my final ballet number to The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

References

Logan, B. (2014). Debut standup comedy tour puts TV star Miranda Hart on the spot. [online] The Guardian. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/feb/28/call-the-midwife-star-miranda-hart-standup-comedy-tour [Accessed 21 June. 2015].