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.
“Rather than tie knots,” sing our heroes in horror, “she’ll undo them!” The show cheerfully sends up the scouts’ innocence, even as it remains essentially a 90-minute promo for the organisation. But the tongue-in-cheekiness of it all can make it hard for the company to land the emotional material. We’re asked to invest in Joe and Ayesha’s friendship without much to go on. A song invoking the scouts’ role as a refuge for misfits comes out of nowhere and the theme goes undeveloped.
But moment by moment, the show – by Sam Cochrane (who also directs) and David Fallon – is a knockabout pleasure, with winning songs in a wide variety of styles, and an all-singing, all multi-instrumentalist cast who sell them with humour and panache. Finally, I couldn’t help but root for justice to prevail at the Scout Games’ knot-tying climax – nor for Scouts! The Musical to find the family audience it deserves.
