"Not extremely bad. Surprising."

I met Dustin for lunch at a patisserie around the corner from the ecole and it was good. He put his arm across my shoulder for a moment and said, “you’re pretty hard on yourself aren’t you.”

Which was sweet, but I don’t know if it’s true. I think I’m fairly gentle with myself, just also very honest.

patisserie moment

We did a little dance around me trying to establish that I didn’t want reassurance or to be fixed (‘I don’t think you’re broken’ he replied. Correct answer.)

He told me things he has noticed about me and had done on stage: My laugh, where I shake my shoulder a little and my body leans a little crookedly, my tripping-forward-over-myself walk, the way I’m always trying to get the answers right.

It gave me the understanding that maybe I was supposed to get from the exercise: that I am ridiculous and loveable. It gave me a sense that it would be possible to be ‘light with myself’ in the way that Philippe keeps asking us to be. I stopped feeling humiliated. We ran back to school in the rain to find everyone costuming up.

annie blacking her teeth in preparation

Today in Samuel Says, instead of strategically asking for kisses from the people I thought most likely to kiss me, I tried asking the least likely. More people said no and it was still fun for me because my judgement was being validated.

We did a bunch of ‘make a noise’ exercises: make a noise like a pressure cooker in love for the first time, like a baby babbling and then doing a poo, like various absurdly racist things that were actually funny in the group but might not work if I write them here.

When it was my turn, I did the thing he had directed me to do last week, where I do the noise and then speak to myself in an encouraging little voice, ‘bravo ailsa, well done’ It worked. Each time I made the noise people laughed, and each time I congratulated myself people laughed. He said, ‘Not extremely bad. Surprising.’ Which is Gaulier-gold-compliments on a platter.

It’s true that each time I speak to myself in that small congratulatory voice it makes me very happy. Doing the ‘exercise’ doesn’t feel like it would give me pleasure, but watching people laugh at me today made me realise that it was working somehow

‘Your clown is near your body’ as the man says.

Luke also got a, ‘Not extremely bad. Surprising.’ And his irrepressible smile at the compliment was delightful.

Two favourite insults for the day (apart from the deeply wrong one about Oslo which won’t bear translation):

‘Don’t shuffle like a penguin who is sad about his balls’

And to an English girl, ‘Don’t play innocent. There is no Roast-Beef innocent’

QC in his angel dress in the break talking seriously with Christy

In the afternoon we did a fight. Fight like you are putting it on for your family, for the fun. Two fighters and a referee who only knows one thing about being a referee: to say ‘one, two, three.’ Nonetheless the referee is taking their job very seriously and wants to be believed.

I fought Luke.

I wanted to fight him because I knew that I wouldn’t be afraid to hit him.

It was really, really fun for me. Just whacking out at him with flailing, slapping, gorilla-clad arms. Gaulier said we didn’t look enough at the audience and I know he was right. But it was so fun. I don't think I've had that much fun in front of the group since we started. I’d like to do it again, to try looking at the audience as well.

Our referee was brilliant – I noticed her acknowledging the flop – which made some things we did funny, even though they hadn’t been before.

referee extraordinaire

I keep noticing again and again how Philippe is teaching us to listen to the flop. His moment of silence after someone has done something un-funny and then the perfectly timed insult. We laugh as much at the flop as at the awful things he says.

Also his slightly mocking, caressing voice: ‘And here, the intellectual genius,’ as I am about to try the exercise. It is enough to make me proud of myself and to laugh at myself in the same moment. It sets us up to succeed.

We go out into Paris. Again with the big-group-dawdling, useless wander. The conversations that stop twelve people at a street corner or mean that 3 people are so involved that they forget to get off the metro. It’s funny and stupid and we end up dancing in a Brazilian bar just a ten minute walk from our apartment and bed.