Jon: Almost a year ago we were giving a masterclass as part of the London International Mime Festival. One of the participants was a middle-aged English woman who had flown over from Geneva to be with us, having been following our work since she saw us at Edinburgh the previous summer. She was evidently not an actress and seemed an awkward, lost and reluctant workshop participant. During a tea break she gave us some feedback. "What about those who are just interested, but are not practitioners?" she asked. This was when the idea formed in our minds to create a lecture. The invitation from PanPan turned it into a reality.

David: The Ridiculusmus method, which is devised like the rest of our work, is formed into a mnemonic ARSEFLOP. We invented this in Southport near Liverpool on 16th March 1999. This talk is called 'Arseflop illustrated' and spends four minutes on each of the letters or principles the first being:

ATTITUDE

(While David comes up behind me and gets in position)

Jon: Attitude is comprised of all the other elements of Arseflop. Basically it is an attitude of seriousness, of going about things with no expectation of laughter, much as we do in everyday life. It is the antithesis of what we call the "smug school" or the "hey mamma, look at me" school of comic performance.

(David comes up with foam pie, signalling imminent joke to audience.)

If we are ever funny it is accidental.

(Jon shaves off foamed face.)

The attitude we aspire to is summed up by Eric Morecambe's advice to Andre Previn: "Never ever think this is funny."

I SING THROUGH MY ARSEHOLE

(song)

REALITY

David: Reality and the Pan Germanic laughter competition.

(Fires gun.)

Fake, fake etc...

(Bleeper goes off.)

... and the winner is...!

(Hands Jon an envelope.)

Jon: (Opens envelope and reads.)

It's a draw.

SENSITIVITY

Jon: Sensitivity - "Being very open to or acutely affected by external stimuli or mental impressions" (O.E.D). There are several kinds of sensitivity. There is sensitivity with the material, where sensitivity means being your own tasteful writer and editor in improvisation. There is sensitivity to the mood of the audience and knowing when they want to play

(go up to friendly person)

and when they don't

(to unfriendly person)

want to play.

Jon: There is also sensitivity to other people, not blocking them and their ideas and knowing when to let them take their space and to have the focus.

(David comes on as Dadaist and begins lecture in gobbledeygook. Eventually kicks Jon in bucket.)

This illustration is called the Bucket Sequence and was originated in a physical theatre symposium in Liverpool in 1999.

BUCKET SEQUENCE

(Analysis: cynicism and boredom re bucket; passing through threshold of boredom and embarrassment; sitting staring at bucket, hopeless and defeated; no possibility of anything - convinced of this, so no attempt to entertain, but it happens...).

EDGE

In 'The Irish Times' on 8th Jan 2001 Hough and Woods are spacemen who came travelling to the north by chance and found for a time a residency at the Playhouse in Derry and then funding from the ACNI. OK - they're not spacemen, they're English; one of many inaccuracies in an otherwise sympathetic piece. I was threatening to emerge in the back of a Morris Minor on the A1 in 1968, but eventually made it to Perth hospital and am therefore Scottish. Here's my birth certificate dated 21st December 1968 - to record the previous day's effort by my mother.

To quote Victoria White, who wrote this article (but possibly not the sub-edited title "How daft is that"): "we're aliens wherever we go... Even if you do try to settle, which we did in Derry, you'll be vomited out of the system." End of quote. Here's us trying to move in to a superstore called IKEA on the M6, junction 9, Wednesbury just outside Birmingham... (Video extract.) This therefore is an experience of travelling along the edge a search for Ernst Bloch's Heimat. The futile attempt to jump the wall, a wall we need to keep battering against.

(Hough as the red shoe woman wishes to steal a red show from the art gallery of the Exhibitionists...)

We like to use these opportunities to audition - any volunteers?

(Video extract.)

FOCUS

At drama school focus was encouraged by doing nothing, sometimes for one minute.

(To David:)

Action!

(David sits while Jon times it and then says:)

Thankyou. And sometimes four minutes of nothing.

(David (as Jeanie): Go!)

There is perhaps no training more rigorously effective than performing on the street.

( Extract from: THE MUSICAL BICYCLE RIDE (Video extract.) )

(During frozen bit David sticks fag ends up Jon's nose, sets something alight, etc. Jon remains in focus.)

LISTEN

David: Listen.

(He begins drum routine, pausing every now and then for Jon to dink a cymbal.)

OPEN YOUR HEART

Jon: This is really an attitude to life. It is sometimes called 'living in the moment'. Opening your heart is difficult for people in life as well as in workshops. It implies freedom, which presents another dilemma. Freedom means that one is responsible for one's own choices and actions. The word 'responsible' may be used in a variety of ways. Sartre said that to be responsible is to 'be the author of' our own lives. We are condemned to be free. He described anxiety as 'the giddiness of freedom'.

There are people who attempt to give up their freedom by persuading you to assume control of them and tell them what to do or how to act. "You show us," they say. But we can't. All we can do is try to find strategies to help them reclaim their freedom. One way is to confront death. An important lesson we can learn from an awareness of death is that life has to be lived now. It cannot be postponed indefinitely. We must engage with others and with the present moment. We must open our hearts.

PLAY

(David puts on music and they dance. They get into global dance gear and runout, cutting to Dublin video sequence.)

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