You could look at the Scout movement for a long time before thinking: this calls for a musical! But that’s what Gigglemug Theatre has come up with: a 90-minute show for families developed in cahoots with the Scout Association. And it’s great fun. Perhaps in the Other Palace studio, it can feel more like a workshop for a musical than a fully realised show. But what it lacks in space, set and – at times – script development, it handsomely makes up in spirit and enthusiasm. Its endearing six-strong cast of actor-musicians hurl themselves at the material; the show is never off its front foot.
The story revolves around the annual Scout Games, where plucky youngsters – and a handful of press-ganged audience members – compete for the prestigious gold badge. There’s a riddles round, a portraiture round and more, as protagonists Joe and Ayesha close in on the final. Jeopardy is supplied by a renegade ex-scout come to avenge herself for her failure to win the games, way back when. Courtesy of the Trance Dance – a number owing more than a little to Rocky Horror’s Time Warp – she enlists some hypnotised helpers in a bid to turn this do-gooding movement into a force for bad.
