"I learnt more about myself in these 4 days now than I have done in the 3 years at drama school. Kristine’s approach to the actor is very significant to me as she strips away the ‘ego’ of the actor; this was very valuable to me as I often do a lot of ‘performance acting’. Today we experimenting with a clowning activity, after sitting back in the classes I decided to be the first one to engage. It was the most excruciating but eye-opening experience of my training as I was made to directly contact the audience and mime along to a song from Kristine’s Ipod which I had no clue what the lyrics were. The idea of the exercise is to laugh with the audience and laugh at yourselves in the process. Retreat from the urge to perform which was a massive obstacle for everyone who got up and did the exercise, but when calm and in the state of mind to laugh at yourself you suddenly find yourself connecting to the audience and not noticing what you are doing on stage but just ‘going with the flow’ which is a valuable lesson that I took from the course. Play what you see in the scene, don’t make the scene about the actor but play with the actors on stage always accepting and building." Umar Malik - Actor