Yikes!

Book and lyrics by Bryony Lavery
Music composed by Gary Yershon

6 April - 14 May 2006, Unicorn, Weston Theatre

• Director: Rebecca Gatward
• Decor: Liz Cook
• Lighting: Colin Grenfell
• Music: Gary Yershon

Summary

A larger than life comedy musical for anyone who loves to be frightened silly.

Let’s go to the top of the mound
to the spooky old graveyard
with the things in the ground
with the woo woos and the nyi nyis,
the hangy down creepers and the dibbly dobblers
and the eek eek eeeks and the grey grabby hands
and the things…….. with the…. bits
and the woooooooooo
Yikes!

Story

Solomon, a mathematical prodigy, Mary the scary punk teenager and their forgetful Gran are surviving along with Zipper the dog and a baby called Baby, in the aftermath of an unnamed catastrophe that claimed the children's parents. Then Gran suggests a nice day out - it is a "ghoulish graveyard" which she suggests is a perfect picnic spot.

The show is a very clever mix of the silly and the serious and intended for the over-sixes. It is about the simple pleasures of scaring yourself silly and confronting your fears. It is also a sharp-eyed critique of a world that seems intent on turning us into quivering jellies so terrified by newspaper headlines that warn of bird flu pandemics, terrorist attacks and earthquakes and the dangers of taking a walk that we become impotent and lose all control over our own lives.

Cast:

• Mary - Scary punk teenage (hates everything and everyone on principle)
• Solomon - pedantic (incapable of using water-wings without first reading the instructions)
• Gran - She wouldn't satisfy government criteria for childminders. So forgetful she keeps misplacing her baby grandson.
• Baby - an adult actor swaddled in huge nappy and babygro!
• Zipper - the dog