Lessons for Mr Flopsie

Mr Flopsie is content with his lot. He lives a mostly comfortable and largely stress-free life in the bottom of The Grand Magifico’s top hat. Along with his doe Barbara – funny name for a rabbit but she likes it well enough – and their thirty-eight children Mr Flopsie frolics all the live long day in the green fields and burrows concealed within the silk topper. With few predators to bother him and enough grass, hay, fruit, vegetables (he especially likes spring cabbage) and fresh water, which an unseen hand regularly delivers, life, he believes, is good enough.

And what of the price for this, if not luxurious, at least tolerable, incarceration? Once a day, twice on Wednesday’s and Saturday’s, with a reprieve on Sunday, Mr Flopise is pulled from the hat by his ears to a chorus of ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ and loud applause from an audience of girls and boys, and their parents and friends, in various theatres across the UK. Despite some who might argue otherwise our hero is indeed a sentient creature but The Grand Magifico is a fairly gentle jailor and being the subject of almost daily manhandling and group voyeurism seems to Mr Flopise a fair enough price to pay for the continued wellbeing of himself and his family.

At the end of each show and when left alone Mr Flopsie ventures out of the hat on his own accord to explore the wider surroundings. More often than not this is The Grand Magifico’s dressing room, now and then the theatre stalls (a treat which generally results in strange but interesting additions to his diet). These trips are important as they enable the fluffy rodent to further his education. As a travelling show-person the magician is provided with different reading material wherever he goes depending on the political inclinations of the theatre owners, cleaners and handy-people. This makes for a confusing learning experience for Mr Flopsie for no sooner has he has read and digested (often literally) a newspaper and made his mind up about the important issues of the day he will have his beliefs and opinions challenged by a different publication. Despite wanting to discuss the knowledge he acquires with Barbara and the kits Mr Flopsie soon realises that the often contradictory messages he is reading not only leave him confused but also make him seem rather stupid if he repeats these all as fact.The most distressing competing stories are those that focus on people who in some ways are different to the expected norm and / or disadvantaged in some way or another. In a number of the papers he reads these individuals are blamed for, it seems to the increasingly confused rabbit, all the problems in society, whereas in others their lifestyles and problems are treated with more respect and empathy.

Slowly, slowly Mr Flopsie begins to work out that rather than believing any story at face value he needs to collect as much information from as many sources as possible before he comes to a conclusion. He learns that just because a publication is popular doesn’t necessarily mean that it is the most trustworthy and the day that someone leaves the computer on before going home opens his eyes to alternative sources of information. The development of Mr Flopsie’s critical thinking skills, and his ability to, at least some of the time, identify fake news, has additional and broader impacts. As he starts to understand the significance of media bias and political spin Mr Flopise also begins to re-evaluate his own life choices and chances. Chewing on his night-time carrot late one Friday night he wonders if the life he has been persuaded is all that a rabbit of his standing and status can expect and hope for is indeed the limit of his opportunities.

A little late for the matinee performance the following day The (acutally not so) Great Magifico forgets to check his box of tricks before going on stage. He is left then with a fair amount of egg on his face when he reaches deep into his top hat only to extract with a flourish a rather wilted cabbage.