It has been a busy term and I am just starting to get over it! It was a little bit of a whirlwind but  lot of fun. One of the finest moments was writing a ‘bespoke’  musical..not my words but the lovely head teachers'( man I hate that word…have you noticed that every ice-cream cone, every second small shop is now creating bespoke things…it is definately the word I would put in room 101 for current overuse,,,5 years ago no-one apart from a few old tailors ever used the word, watchout it will come and get you.

Also we got to be called ‘husband and wife team’ which is another phrase that gets right up my goat ( now that cannot be right..up my goat?) Siggy didnt like it either.might have to get divorced old-school-music-centenary-musical-torriano-junior-school

Anyway the musical was a dream to write . The kids at Torriano and their teachers Laura Shingler and Philip Taylor were so amazing to work with.

We started writing the script and the songs of the Whit week and continued over the first two weeks and kept adding lines and songs until there were 48 speaking parts! Felt it was important for as many kids as possible to have a go at trying having a speaking lines ( lots of them first of all said they were too shy).

The kids were amazing and i don’t think there was one of the 58 students who did not put their heart and soul into the performances. THe story was great and was guided by the school having it’s centenary this year. At first we thought that would make it more difficult, but the restraints sort of helped. We did a lot of time travel, which gave us opportunities to write for more characters and for me to write songs from all sorts of styles which was so much fun. The musical started in 2910 and then moved to 2010 and the to 1910 when the school opened.

We then moved to the 1920’s where we met flappers and gangsters-Clement nearly stole the show with his one line, the moral of the tail being its not the person with the most lines who will always steal the show. -each time the whole cast moved they arrived in another rehearsal of the school musical. we then moved on to the forties, a really funny scene in the war with a song all about smiling!

WE then moved into the swinging sixties, Dylan’s hippy was so funny. as was the wandering hippy Ishmam who was in every scene. Great song about peace and love!

And then we we

re transported to 1977 and the punks stole the show, with a song called Pogo. The final Goodbye song ( and we hope we meet again. lifelong friends we will remain) brought a tear to my eye. Siggy’s favourite time of the year…anothe Partington Seymour runaway success