I couldn’t have been any older than 6 or 7
when I was taken along to the park with my mother to watch an outdoor performance of Wind in the Willows. Staged by a theatre company for children, it involved a high level of audience participation, moving from one section of the park to another as the costumed performers encouraged the pack of enthusiastic children to run along with them, searching for Badger etc, while the parents followed quietly behind.

It was at the moment in the story when our heroes were attacking the weasel stronghold that the limits of audience participation seemed clear to all but me. Sitting on the grass at the very front of the audience, and by this time fully engrossed with the proceedings, the yells of attack from Badger and the gang prompted me to jump up and wildly fire punches at the nearest weasel actor. It was only 4 or 5 seconds of this before I realized all the other children were still seated and quietly watching the show. I swiftly and subtly returned to my position seated at the front of the audience, red-faced, but with the strange feeling that no one in the audience of 40 or so parents and children appeared to notice.

Somehow, the uncertainty of that has tormented me for years since.
(augsav forgot about B3ta, Sat 29 Jan 2011, 10:13, 2 replies)

So that was you! Our whole family still piss ourselves over that!
(A Blair, Sat 29 Jan 2011, 18:55, closed)

The mental image of that is adorable.
(Avnas dosh!, Sun 30 Jan 2011, 14:32, closed)