THE BATTLE OF THE BEIGE

Felix says... The Beige-ster comes into our house and paints all our walls beige, gets rid of our colourful clothes and makes everyone dull. He’s like a giant beige balloon that floats about bumping into stuff and when we burst him he makes this noise THHHHHHHHWWWWFFFFFFFFFFFFPPPPPPPPFFFFFFFFFFFF (Felix  jumps around the room impersonating a let-go  balloon)

The Beige-ster popped into our improvisations on Day Two of working together. This strange party pooper wanted to take our fun away, to colour everything safe and dull, to intrude not only into the magical land we had made together but into our house! When interrogated he (for it was a he) blustered and muttered that it was for our own good, that boys shouldn’t have pink bedrooms and mums should definitely not have blue hair.

I’ve met this guy before, over the years, in different guises. He’s the disapproving tut to the new mother in the street, the unsolicited advice, the colour coded gendered aisles in the toyshop. He’s Calm down dear, be quiet Miss, don’t make a fuss. He’s Be a man, don’t be soft, you throw like a girl.

In one of my solo improvisations I dialogued with our pallid foe, using the fooling techniques that I learned from Holly Stoppit in our work together; for the Beige-ster  is, I suppose an inner critic of mine. (although as I type this, the beige one does seem to be thinnly disguising himself as the patriarchy)  One of those voices offering commentary on our lives, the inner voice being almost always our harshest critic. I questioned his motives for showing up: To keep you safe  and what he was doing here: Making sure you follow the rules. Having gleaned this information I thanked him for his concern but assured him we were doing just fine and that we needed space to break the rules and paint our rooms whatever damn colour we choose.

THHHHHHHHWWWWFFFFFFFFFFFFPPPPPPPPFFFFFFFFFFFF