The Whole Kaboodle and a sky at firelight (monday morning part three).

continued from yesterday
from a promise made on the 13th

If you do a Wikipedia search for Kaboodle you will not find anything about the British theatre group that sweated under the stage lights during the late seventies and early eighties, if not at other times as well.

They may or may not have been British as at least one of them was Scottish and another Brazilian, but even if you perform a search for the founder of the group you will learn nothing.
They remain a digital absentmindedness.

Luckily we have bitsnbobs.

Though i will not name the founder - this deafing digital silence may be intended.

Let's just call him John.

I first saw Kaboodle at the Oval in S.E. London, the theatre not the cricket ground.

I had previously seen a test match between the West Indies and England at the cricket ground, a thrilling event as Wes Hall was bowling and Gary Sobers was batting.

Unfortunately no one told me how big a test match ground is and how far we would be from the action taking place in the centre – my point of reference for all things cricket up to this point had been playing with the Bradley’s (friends of my mum) on a strip of wasteland at the end of their garden.

The Oval theatre, a place where I later attended my first fire-eating workshop, was a community arts theatre and Kaboodle’s show was a mixture of mime, comedy and everything that physical theatre should be. The scene where the monkey (I think it was a monkey) visited the monastery where the monk had taken a vow of silence and was suffering from a sinus infection was one of the best the eighties gave us.

Some time after I enrolled for my first week-long clown workshop with the group’s founder and a lot of whatever I have done since on stage started here.

A lot of whatever I have ever done on a cricket pitch, incidentally, started at the Oval too.

The last time I played a game of cricket was following an invite from a friend who, coincidentally, was an ex-monk who had re-entered social life and was training to be an acupuncturist.

When it was my turn to bat I strode to the middle, imaging the public acclaim, took guard and faced the first ball.

I stepped towards it with a defensive bat angled down – I figured I would take a few moments to get used to the speed and movement – and missed.

I approached the second delivery in the same manner – it was pitched outside the off stump, and I missed again.

The bowler motioned to a fielder to take up a position about three inches from where the ball was pitching and I faced my third ball.

It was a simple catch and I was out.

No one clapped on the way back to the pavilion, though to be honest there was no pavilion – just a field, a bench and my friend.

“Any room at the monastery?’ I asked.



postscript - sorry, i wasn't rigorous in my internet searching, i relied too much on wikipedia. Kaboodle theatre company does have a presence on the web and its founder Johnny Melvile here.