Why did the chicken cross the road?

Why DID the chicken cross the road? Because he didn’t want to be a rabbit! Boom! Boom!

I am sensing a slightly perplexed look on your face. So let me try another.

Knock! Knock! Who’s there? Dunnup! Dunnup who? Ha! Ha! Dunnupoo!!  No? OK one more.

Why didn’t the skeleton go the ball? Because he had nobody to go with!

Ah yes, the old ones are the best, but actually I think I prefer the slightly off the wall chicken joke. The randomness of it certainly made us laugh yesterday morning at St Mary’s CE Primary School in Bolton. We were leading an interactive workshop on The Tempest and Trinculo the jester needed some new material to entertain King Alonso as he sailed back to Italy. What better source of entertainment than children’s jokes! This is one of our favourites from a five year old at Pinchbeck East Primary, Lincolnshire a few years ago (stand by to laugh your socks off!):

Knock! Knock! Who’s there? Egg! Egg who? Egg Carrot!

You see? Random jokes – so unfunny they are hilarious! But what courage! Those of us who can’t remember a punchline to save our lives are in awe of the bravery of the young, who seemingly have no compunction about telling ‘a joke’ which, in their heads at that moment, makes perfect sense, but in reality makes no sense at all! In this grim old world, there is something refreshing about just saying whatever comes into your head, in complete innocence. So here at FTW HQ we’d like to say a huge thank you to St Mary’s CE Primary, Bolton for restoring our faith in the lighter side of life and reminding us that sometimes you just need to go with the flow, give your brain a rest and not over think it!

St Mary’s was a new primary school to us as indeed was Yattendon Primary School in West Berkshire. We spent a very happy day there earlier this month working with Years 1-5 on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Five year groups in one day might seem like a huge task but Yattendon is a small village school and FINDING THE WILL takes real pleasure in working with schools like this. It is a constant source of frustration that village schools with less than 120 children (in some cases much less) are denied the benefits of visiting companies like us simply because of economics. We are always trying to find ways around this but it’s not easy for the schools or for us. In the past we have successfully run Cluster Project Weeks with four different village schools used to working together. Not only can each school benefit from a day of workshops with us but also thirty children from each school can go on to perform in the chosen play the following week, with the added social benefit of mixing with children from another school. Cluster Projects work really well but they do take a lot of organising. Sometimes if, like Yattendon, the school is very small, we can send just one practitioner rather than two, and reduce the cost that way – but this is serious thinking outside the box! So if any teachers working in small schools out there are reading this and have a brilliant idea of how we could collaborate please do get in touch jules@findingthewill.com – I’d love to hear your thoughts.  And Yattendon, thanks for having us – your bright sparky pupils were a joy to work with (and I shan’t forget in a hurry six year old Duke Theseus’ plan to wear “a smart white toga” on his wedding day!).

Time for a final chicken joke I think and I must say, I think I might even remember this one:

Why did the chicken cross the playground? To get to the other slide! Boom tish!

All chicken jokes gratefully received – both Trinculo and Feste are always on the look out for new gags.

That’s all folks! Speak again soon.