Happy New Year!
We say goodbye to an eventful decade and hello to the ‘1-ies’ or whatever they’re called. As customary, I’m going to attempt to summarise my year to make up for the complete and utter lack of posting on this so-called ‘blog’.
2009 was yet another busy and eventful year (there’s hardly been a non-eventful year to be honest) and most of my time in the first few months of the year was occupied by work.
As I mentioned at the beginning of the year, I transferred to WSE Beijing’s flagship centre in Wangfujing in a Supervisor role and I was put into the deep end. I immediately began supervising a team of around 20 foreign and local staff, put in charge of working schedules, interviews, quality control and other odd jobs…
January - The ‘Wonderful’ Wizard of Oz
One of these unexpected odd-jobs was a surreal but entertaining experience. I was to co-ordinate and direct a musical performance for the company’s Annual Christmas Party, an event attended by 300-odd guests from around the region. I was nominated by other managers and I wasn’t too happy with the unwanted responsibility to say the least.
The Task
We worked with 2 other centres in Beijing to put together a performance based on a Broadway musical. 
The criteria: you had to sing 3 songs and you had to dance and there were to be 6 other musical performances too and we had to compete against them. A full-blown stage with lighting, sound system, video screens - the works - would also be provided.
There was also zero budget and zero preparation time - everybody still had to work, rehearsals had to be done in our own time. The Annual Party was in 2 weeks.
Anyway, our musical of choice was ‘The Wiz’, an adaptation of the classic ‘The Wizard of Oz’. I was told that the classic film was very different from the musical, but seeing as nobody had ever seen the musical before, we decided to follow the film’s version of events.
The Cast
The people chosen to perform didn’t really want to take part but were probably pushed to do so through peer pressure, probably from their managers - I guess it was akin to being pressured to sing an embarrassing song at a Karaoke party against your will, whilst sober.
So I set about organising my motley crew of misfits into a cast vaguely resembling the ‘The Wizard of Oz’.
Very soon, we had a Lion with a scouse accent, a Tinman from Portsmouth, a Chinese 6 foot 4 Scarecrow, 4 witches (yes 4), Dorothy (who was painfully shy), some not very munchkin-looking Munchkins, a bald Wizard from New Zealand, and Toto (who was a guy).
I now had a cast of sorts, but I still had no idea as to how to set about directing a musical.
In a bizarre twist of luck, I discovered that our Liverpudlian Lion had some real-life directing experience, having directed a few episodes of Hollyoaks and Eastenders back in Blighty, and wrote an entire script for the musical in an hour.
I thus nominated the Lion the chief scriptwriter and creative director.
With renewed confidence, we got stuck into the tracks from the film and we worked well together on the songs, Dorothy sang well, and we had chosen good tracks. Despite only having had a few hours for rehearsals, I felt much happier than I did at the beginning of the project and the thought of winning 1st prize had even flashed across my mind.
The Lion, The Witches, and their Wardrobe
As we didn’t have a budget, I instructed my charges to be creative with their costumes and to try and dig something out that vaguely resembled their roles on the big day. I told the Lion to find some orange and brown clothes, the Tinman to get decked out in tinfoil, and Munchkins (who were 2 ladies) to look Munchkin-like by wearing bright, garish colours.
They understood but, to be honest, if I were them I’d have no idea where to begin to get their costumes.
The Big Day
On the day, The Lion and I had to work until late and so couldn’t make it to the early rehearsals with the rest of the cast to rehearse our routines and songs. Having trust in the team, I was sure they’d be fine with out the director and scriptwriter. They all had copies of the script. I was actually very excited as the Annual Party is much anticipated every year due to the entertainment on show, the good food and drink, and the quality of the prizes given away.
In the taxi down to the hotel venue, I was going through our musical routine again and again in my head, picturing how it’d work out. The songs had been stuck in my head for the last 2 weeks and I hoped it would all be worth the effort.
When I got to the hotel at about 7pm, I went to seek out my magical cast. The hotel itself was very nice, the World Trade Hotel in Beijing, no less. I eventually found them in a back room behind the main stage. No words could describe the mixture of emotions I went through with what I saw…
The Dance…
Well Dorothy had her red shoes, the witches had their hats, but the late-arriving Lion was upset that the others had changed the script and threw a very director-like tantrum and stormed out, the scarecrow looked like an extra from Lord of the Rings, (to his credit) Toto managed to find a giant dog costume, the Tinman looked just like the Tinman, the Wizard was drunk, and the Munchkins were dressed in black fucking evening gowns!
To top it all off, they decided to add an extra dance where they all ran around in a circle (the idea being they followed the Yellow Brick Road) but it instead looked like a bizarre happy Pagan sacrificial Maypole dance - and they all looked so happy doing it. For some reason, it also reminded me of that ‘Woodland Animals’ South Park episode.
Realising that there was absolutely no time to make any changes to their routine, I gave them encouragement and downed several pints before leaving them to join the other guests watching the performances.
The Performance
After great performances from the ‘Lion King, ‘Annie’, and ‘Hairspray’, it was our turn.
The lights dimmed and the screen transported us to Kansas. Dorothy came out in red shoes.
She started singing ‘Over the Rainbow’ but was drowned out by the music. The next 5 minutes was dialogue which I noticed was too long for a 10-minute ‘musical’. She met the Lion, the Tinman and the Scarecrow. Toto was taller than the Tinman. The Munchkins looked more like witches than the Witches did.
…and then they did the dreaded Yellow Brick Road Pagan sacrificial Maypole dance.
They sang ‘Yellow Brick Road’ out of synch and to no music - the audience watched in silence.
I watched open-mouth and in horror at the embarrassing tragedy unfolding before my eyes. I felt a rush of heat over me and I realised I was sweating profusely from the sheer embarrassment.
With the team continuing to ramble on on stage, I slipped quietly out of the performance hall and into the toilets. There, I found the two other managers who had nominated me as director. Nothing was said.
When I returned to the hall, the audience were clapping and the team were bowing and I was glad the torment was all over.
We came 2nd-to-last, but beat the ‘Lion King’. HAVE IT!
An embarrassing yet entertaining start to an eventful 2009 
