08 May 2025 Marie’s Reflections on Our End of Term Sharing
OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCES WITH ALIENS AND MYSTERIOUS GUESTS!
We had two excellent plays of extraordinary talent and a double whammy of showmanship with Underground Lights members at our end of term sharing. It was an incredible umbrella of inclusion and excellence. Expressing all the work of the term coming into a crescendo of Aliens studying human behaviour, to mysterious guests at the Forest Hotel. I was transported into a world of Aliens intent on learning what makes humans tick. Dazzling white costumes with Alien antennas, songs harmonizing with weird alien-like voices, actions and peculiar humour generated from human behaviour and biology. These Aliens didn’t know humans had jobs or needed money to buy food. Yet these differences were overcome and indeed the Aliens against their own instincts came to like the lower human species.
The Aliens began to appreciate that biology was important, taste, air, food and joy which earth supports. So, in a world of living biology, the aliens learnt how to breathe, eat, live like human beings and have fun. The theme music was: Calling Occupants From Interplanetary Space.
Put together superbly with incredible costumes made by members’ hands. Aliens were sent to Earth as a punishment for failing exams. They learnt that humans were kind, compassionate and joyful and in the end didn’t mind losing the chance of going on holiday to Galactica when they were sent to Coventry, Earth. Actors’ weird Alien-like actions were surreal and the humour other worldly. It was unreal watching Aliens from outer space on Earth. Aliens floated with the music like a moon walk dance.
Props were changed in front of the audience giving a behind the scenes experience, suddenly the Forest Hotel appeared! With dancing trees and a lost guest trying to find her way to the Forest Hotel, this was the important guest everyone at the hotel was waiting for – except she wasn’t welcomed in the way she expected! Arriving with mud on her face and an oversized mobile phone she had an unusual greeting: “You look as if you’ve been dragged through the mud!”
Each story was convincing, I really believed Aliens had landed on earth and the Hotel was expecting a special guest. The movement, shiny uniforms and eery voices of the Aliens took me into Sci-Fi mode.
The realism of both plays sent me into a world of imagination and intrigue. The development of the pieces from conception, putting together ideas, building a story and making wonderful props, green leaves, a giant mobile phone, and Alien uniforms with antennas made the play into a performance of the supernatural.
The acting was spot on, the stories blended seamlessly, and the actions were synchronized with perfection to elicit humour. A true performance of great acting and fun. I couldn’t believe how well the play formulated into an amazing show. From a sculptured man as still as a rock and Aliens eating candy floss to Forest Hotel mayhem.
By the end of the show, I felt I’d met Aliens and had spent a day at the Forest Hotel.
