World Poetry Day

Every year on March 21 we celebrate WORLD POETRY DAY, a date declared by UNESCO in 1999.
The purpose of the day is to promote the reading, writing, publishing and teaching of poetry throughout the world and, as the UNESCO session declaring the day says, to "give fresh recognition and impetus to national, regional and international poetry movements".
Bearing this in mind and to mark another performance by the Interacting theatre company to take place today, allow me to leave you with a poem - Yeah, what else today??? Laugh while you learn - so we hope today with the play "The World at War".

PRAYER TO LAUGHTER

O Laughter
giver of relaxed mouths

you who rule our belly with tickles
you who come when not called
you who can embarrass us at times

send us stitches in our sides

Image Source: bbc.co.uk

shake us til the water reaches our eyes

buckle our kness till we cannot stand

we whose faces are grim and shattered
we whose hearts are no longer hearty
O Laughter we beg you

crack us up

crack us up

John Agard 

"WHAT THE DICKENS?" by Interacting

Another year, another theatre play by INTERACTING and another stunning success!
Laugh while you learn is their motto and couldn't really be more appropriate. Indeed, it's already the fourth time / year they have come to Soure to delight us - teachers and students of Martinho Árias - with a funny and educational theatre play and let me tell you that, this time, there were ONLY 210 students and seven teachers. What about that, hem?
This year's play - as the title suggests - had to do with Charles Dickens (1812-1870), the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era and one of the most popular of all time. Charles Dickens published over a dozen major novels, a large number of short stories (including a number of Christmas-themed stories), a handful of plays, and several non-fiction books. Some of his most popular novels are "The Adventures of Oliver Twist", "A Christmas Carol", "David Copperfield", "Hard Times", "A Tale of Two Cities", "Great Expectations" to name just the most famous ones. And what did the two actors on stage do? They used many of the characters to play different roles and to ask for your participation ;)
Also important when talking about Charles Dickens is, of course, Dickens London - the time of the industrial revolution - when it was both a city of change and of stark contrasts.
But what about the title (of the play) itself??? Charles Dickens had, as a contemporary critic put it, a "queer name" and the name Dickens was used in interjective exclamations like "What the Dickens!" as a substitute for "devil"...

If you are curious about Charles Dickens and Dickens London, click on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_dickens
and if you would also like to get some more info on Interacting, please click on
http://www.interacting.info/index.html
where you will find not only lots of information about their projects but also news. However, if you wish to get in touch with this Educational Theatre Company, you can write to them on
hello@interacting.info
and even plan a drama course in Ireland. Have you ever thought about that????

On behalf of Patrick Deas (the person in charge of Interacting), you are to be congratulated on your good behaviour and excellent contribution for the success of another play.

Now ENJOY and then take a minute or two to write down your comment / your opinion on this particular activity.