An Olympic Challenge

Necessity is the mother of invention and Lucky Bucket Productions was born out of necessity.  We were invited to provide a musical for a group of 30 young people between the ages of 8 and 18 to perform.  We took up the challenge and then quickly realised we had never written a musical before, or a play, in fact the longest thing we had written was a shopping list. In retrospect I have no idea what made us agree to take on the task, maybe it was just one of those strange moments when fate intervenes.

Anyway, the theatre group were really stuck for suitable material and we were about to provide it.  Fortunately, the show was a success and the cast and audience responded positively. We then went on to write a show every year to be performed by the same group and eventually built a large catalogue which is now available to all schools and theatre groups.

The writing process is usually a joy.  We have had the pleasure of writing a film noir inspired detective musical with a jazzy score, a sci-fi musical set in 1950’s America, a pirate musical, a western, all of which inspire and immediately throw up fun , creative ideas and offer direction.

We had discussed the forthcoming Olympic celebrations and thought it would be appropriate to write a musical to mark the occasion and help teachers by providing a valuable resource.   Then reality kicked in.  Just how interesting can a musical about the Olympics be?  Really?   

The task of sitting down and writing the initial script was daunting, after all this was going to be about sport.  Sport!  Two less sporty people you will never meet, unless tap dancing counts as a sport.  Throw a ball and Angela will undoubtedly duck and squeal, ask her to hit something with a racquet and she will swipe at the air with no control and miss.  As for running?  No. There will be no running.  So there we are faced with writing a show about sport and worse still history.  Oh dear.

We were pleasantly surprised by the outcome. The result of hours of research is a greater understanding of the history of the Olympics, a real passion for the fascinating little stories connected with the festival and a whole host of brilliant facts to arm ourselves with at the pub quiz. 

Quite unexpectedly the Olympic story is a totally engaging one.  So many quirky tales cropped up and such fascinating characters have been involved it was pretty much a musical waiting to happen.  Add to that how horribly brutal the original games were and you have a script to appeal to children in a Roald Dahl/Horrible Histories kind of way.  Just perfect.

Perhaps the most interesting fact is that the athletes used to run naked as a tribute to the Gods.  There you go, straight away, pure brilliance.  Let’s write a song about it. 

All of these factors have made the whole process a surprisingly pleasant one but we are passionate about OLYMPICS: THE NAKED TRUTH for one reason and for one reason alone.  Every word that has been written, every lyric, every tune has been created with young people in mind.  The thought of the pupils learning the script and songs and remembering the information for years to come because they fully engaged in the material has inspired us.  That is what has been so brilliantly refreshing about writing this show.  We dream of meeting someone in 20 years time who performed in one of our shows and learnt something, was inspired or maybe even found their chosen career.

It makes the hours of research, the late nights and the creative tussles all worth it! You can download a 10 page preview of OLYMPICS: THE NAKED TRUTH from the Early Learning HQ website in the songs and stories section. 

Angela & Andrew have worked in the field of youth theatre for many years.  Angela ran her own theatre school and now works as a freelance tutor, director and choreographer.  Andrew has a background in rock music but was invited to play the role of the man eating plant in Little Shop of Horrors and has had an interest in musical theatre ever since. Together they run Lucky Bucket Productions providing schools and theatre groups across the country with original shows for performance.