Laughter In The Park for BHF Laugh-A-Thon

The weather was kind and it was just the sort of warm, sunny day that encourages people to slough their inhibitions and laugh, just because it feels good. I probably have more opportunities than most people to be part of a laughter train but it is always good fun. I ran several sessions and the age of the participants was from 18 months upwards.

One of the participants was in his 80s: he gave us a spirited rendition of The Laughing Policeman. Getting a licence for this events involves so many considerations that I have to confess have a momentary concern about whether or not I needed a licence that specifically mentioned singing - and then I decided that the guy was a participant, it was up to him whether or not he sang in public on a sunny day in the park.

I had some interesting chats about laughter and happiness with people after the sessions. I also had some wry comments from people who were laughing at themselves for smoking while they took the British Heart Foundation balloons for their children.

My next large-scale event is August. I've been invited to be the warm-up for the Concert in the Park: apparently one of the acts is a T-Rex tribute band that actually has two of the original members of T-Rex. Is this a special hybrid-tribute category? Selfishly, the best thing about this event is that it is my first opportunity to run a laughter event for an audience of several hundred people. It wouldn't be safe to run the Laughter Train exercise but there are some exercises (like the Laughter Wave - like the Mexican Wave but involving different pitches of laughter) that are made for large numbers.

Copyright 2006, Tony Plant Happystance Project