From a whore’s perspective: Tortoise or not tortoise; that is the question.

The diary thoughts of Val Punt as she prepared to play "The Woman Taken In Adultery" in the York Minster Mystery Plays 2016

WHAT makes the Mystery Plays so unique is that you find yourself amongst a mighty cast of community nutters, I mean actors…a melee of animals even, and so to… The Ark!

Standing on a chair, in the beautiful setting of St William’s College next to the House of God itself, our lovely director, Philip Breen, explained that it was time to decide who would be what animal.

We then appeared to have what can only be described as an animal auction. Ruffling his hair with an air of hesitation, the director confessed that he wasn’t entirely sure how to give out the parts of the animals (‘Darling, I could see you as a hippo. What I mean is that you’d look good as a hippo - I’m certainly not saying that you are a hippo’).

So the suggestion that perhaps we could volunteer ourselves and then see if that animal were on the list… After a tentative start with a few murmurings, a wonderful older gentleman emerged from the midst of the crowd (rather like Lazarus from his grave, which just so happens to be the role he is playing). He slowly raised his hand and solemnly declared ‘I should like to be a tortoise; this is extremely important to me.’

His wish was granted, then the requests came in thick and fast and all animals were assigned. The energy had escalated to such a degree within the room that the director warned us not to become too attached to our recently acquired animal personas.

During the tea break I asked Michael about his fervent desire to be a tortoise. Turns out that the previous weekend his tortoise of nearly 80 years had come out of her hibernation, ‘Oh wow!’ I say, ‘What a great coincidence and wonderful story. Why didn’t you explain that to everyone earlier? Michael: ‘She died yesterday’. Me: ‘Oh’.

I have acquired the role of beaver, to add to the role of whore, the family are so proud…

In our latest rehearsal, the movement director from the RSC no less, lovely lady, very sincere, was assisting with the directing of animal actions. We were asked to think about our position in the food chain which could help to govern our behaviour. I asked my fellow beaver… ‘But who eats beaver darling? Say, can’t we swim anyway?!’

I gather that the general idea was that, having loosened up earlier by dancing and looking into each other’s eyes and feeling our partner’s breathing through their body (not initially keen on this prospect -don’t like being touched - absolutely no idea how I had three children), that we should now be able to commit to the movement required for our animal characters. I felt like a total fool as I did a shocking impression of a beaver which ended up with a spot of ark nibbling. Think more Hannibal Lecter than cute beaver.

Two observations here… first, I confess that I am now entirely attached to my beaver despite the director’s warning - to the point where I signed a Facebook petition online to save baby beavers in Scotland and I don’t even like Facebook. Yes, really. What can I say? I feel an affinity with my fellow Castor fiber.

Secondly, where else in York could you spend your Saturday morning receiving movement therapy whilst pretending to be an animal? That’s just playing, isn’t it? Everyone was smiling, everyone was happy. Ah, I’m beginning to understand the whole concept of community theatre.

And whilst we were pratting around, I mean rehearsing, the work that’s going on behind the scenes, is even more worthy and fascinating. The magnificent masks for the animals truly need to be seen to be believed. They are an act of creation in themselves and therefore, I shall work damn hard to do them justice (sorry). Can’t wait to rock the beaver look – could be even more fetching than a bikini.

To be continued