FROM THE DIRECTOR
I’d first like to thank Catherine Howe, Antoinette Keylock and the wider team involved in spearheading the campaign to get this very ambitious joint production between Bedford Girls’ School and Bedford School, agreed and in motion. Since its inception, the project has been a true collaboration and staff, from both schools and The Quarry Theatre, have worked tirelessly to ensure its success; their names are credited in this programme and I’d like to take this opportunity to thank them once again.
‘Bugsy Malone: The Musical’ is synonymous with entertainment, merriment and, for lack of a better word, silliness. The play also deals with mature themes such as substance abuse, use of violence and unfulfilled ambition; it is this contrast that I wanted to explore with the cast whilst also retaining the sense of fun! Working with students from year 10 to the Upper Sixth has allowed the exploration of some of these key themes and we have been able to rehearse details to enhance the actor’s characterisation; for example, we have played with Fat Sam’s dependency on alcohol and allowed it to become a key action for Toby (see if you can count how many times his character visits the bar!); we have also tried to highlight the competition between Polly’s Blousey and Emmie’s Tallulah and we’ve aimed to hint at the undercurrent of violence in the whole play. That being said, if you take away all of the aims and objectives, if you strip the story back to its roots, you’ll find it’s very simply a love story - Blousey and Bugsy overcoming the circumstances around them to find each other, and fall in love.
The students have been an absolute joy to work with and I’ve been struck by the talent of the cast and crew. I’m proud of the production we’ve all created together; it looks good, sounds good and hopefully, makes you, our audience, feel good.
Enjoy the show.
Craig Stratton
FROM THE MUSICAL DIRECTOR
Having been fortunate enough to be in the ‘pit’ under the effervescent Musical Director extraordinaire Mr Bantock for ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ in 2019, I was excited to start working as MD for ‘Bugsy Malone’. This has been a truly collaborative project from the start and I am thrilled to have spent many hours working alongside our colleagues from Bedford Girls’ School in order to have brought this production to the stage.
It has also been a pleasure to direct a band which consists mainly of pupils from both schools – what a privilege to work with such committed and positive young musicians! From the outset, the band has understood that our aim has been to replicate the sound and tightness of a professional pit band and I have no doubt you will be impressed with their achievements. The Bugsy score is certainly catchy and entertaining, however the challenge, over and above the usual suspects such as tuning and ensemble, has been to capture the stylistic details. The use of the banjo and the ‘honky tonk’ piano in particular nod to the era of Dixieland and Ragtime and over the course of the project, the pupils have learnt to play with stylistic agility, transforming themselves from the big band playing in Fat Sam’s Speakeasy, to the sultry, more intricate sounds of the small group in ‘Tomorrow’. We’ve added a few effects from the original movie score to enhance the sound of the band which we hope you enjoy!
A huge thanks must go to Dominic Keating-Roberts for so superbly coaching the singers, I’m sure you agree that they sound fantastic.
Dominic Childs
