Playing charades

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Do any of you play charades? The MyLotter @m_audrey6788 asked about childhood games. I didn’t really play board games much as I didn’t have any siblings, my parents were often too busy to play, and when I played with my friends we were almost always outside. One of us would go to another’s house, knock on the door and timidly ask ‘Can so-and-so come out to play?’ and if they were allowed they would be ushered outside. Then we might go on to another friend’s house to ask if they could play too. We rarely went inside one another’s homes. Consequently board games didn’t really feature much. But one thing we did play when we didn’t feel like running around was ‘Charades’ as this didn’t require any materials. So for those of you who haven’t heard of this, I will try to explain. Charades is a miming game, where one person tries to ‘act out’ clues for others to guess. We used to just play where one person thought of a subject and then mimed, and the others guessed, but you can also play in teams where one team gives one member of the other team the subject and the rest of the team have to guess it. Anyway, the subject can be the title of a book, TV show, play or film. The person miming uses particular gestures to indicate which one - opening hands for a book, drawing a square shape in the air for TV, miming opening curtains for a play, and miming operating a handle-cranked film camera for a film. For something which is more than one - a book and a film for example - just do more than one gesture. They then hold up fingers to indicate the number of words in the title. Once this is guessed, they hold up the appropriate number of fingers for the word they are going to mime first. Certain words have their own gestures. For example holding up one index finger with the other across the top of it to make a ‘T’ indicates ‘the’. Holding finger and thumb close together indicates a small word such as ‘a’ or ‘an’ or ‘of’ or ‘in’ etc. Putting the flat hand, palm down, on top of the head indicates a person’s name. The person miming can only nod or shake their head to indicate whether guesses are correct or not. For other words they have to make up their own actions. For long words, they can break them up into syllables if they prefer - this is indicated by placing fingers in the crook of the opposite elbow, first showing the total number of syllables, then showing which one is about to be acted. Some titles that you think might be easy are much more difficult, and vice versa - for example ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ might seem difficult, but there’s a good chance that as soon as you indicate that the first two words are a name someone will immediately shout out ‘Harry Potter’ and from there it’s pretty easy. Something like ‘Watership Down’ on the other hand, is much harder! We used to (and still do) have a lot of fun playing this, as children and as adults, and it is something that absolutely anyone can play anywhere. No materials are needed, and it can be tailored to any age-group simply by the choice of subjects. I believe you can now buy a boxed version of this game but that’s just someone cashing in on an old idea for people who have no imagination! All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2021.