Try This version

I was suddenly facing a group of people, who would not care how clever I was. That was a real mistake I made in my early years (on more than one occasion). Trying to show others that I was clever. Or thought I was. They were not going to be just a tough audience. They were going to be…. Wait a minute! That was it. They were an audience. I should treat them as an audience who were at a show. They didn’t want a boring recitation, They wanted something that would entertain them. The concept came to me very suddenly. I looked back at Mr Walsh, about to begin the recitation, I realised this was another way to present the poem. Some people would call it divine intervention. It wasn’t ‘divine intervention’ (I was certainly well out of range of any catholic schools and nuns). Thinking about the cause, I am also sure it wasn’t because of his wife. Back then I didn’t even know his wife was an actress. But ‘Acting it out’ was the idea. Act out the poem’s character, Ethelred. We played games like that at home sometimes. Charades and such. And there was a certain amount of entertainment at home on various occasions, with sisters who could play guitars and violins and most of us enjoyed singing (or thought we could). We fooled around a lot at home acting things out that we had seen in movies, or making up things with our toys. So why not. A voice character thrown in and…….. How difficult would this be?

So there it was. I opened my mouth to start and immediately dropped down to my knees “Young Ethelred was only three”, (see, dropped down to look shorter, like a child) This, got the attention of them all. They suddenly sat up in their chairs and were looking over the edges of their desks. Mr Walsh even looked surprised. “Or thereabouts when he..” I continued. And went on. Becoming not just Ethelred, but his mother (silly voice and all), the ‘Ethelred’ as a Packford 8 motor car (silly car noises and all), and the headmaster who “caned him on his number plate” (silly sound effect -clang, clang, clang) By then my fellow classmates were actually laughing out loud. There was the odd ‘whoop’ of joy as I ‘reversed’ and ‘drove’ around (on all my fours) at the front of the class. I knew I knew the poem, so not having to read it, gave me plenty of leeway in presenting the poem in this manner. Then, the tragic part of the tale. “He merely whirred a bit inside,
and gave a faint chug-chug, and died.” With that, I flipped over onto my back, legs in the air , in the worst of impersonations of something dead. Then stopped (dramatic pause). They clapped. Some of them clapped. I hadn’t finished yet, but they clapping and were laughing. I jumped to my feet. Slightly out of breath from the ‘performance’, and finished the poems last eight lines in a wave of happiness.

(Continued tomorrow)