Synopsis of Bed Bug

'The Bedbug'
By Snoo Wilson
Music by Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt

"Ivan Varlet, a boozy mechanic and Party Member is having an arranged marriage with a hairdresser, who wishes to have the security of a genuine card carrying proletarian husband. Ivan's proletarian self-improving efforts to join the hairdressing (bourgeoisie) classes come to grief during the wedding when the guests set fire to the house during an altercation between Hairdressers and Mechanics, burning everything to cinders.

The fire brigade are too drunk to save them, but they manage to wash Ivan into the cellar where he is immediately frozen in a block of ice, only to be thawed out again live, fifty years later and displayed in a zoo as a specimen of what humanity was like before the glorious revolution. But meanwhile, 'humanity' has evolved and concepts like romantic love are extinct.

Ivan and the world's last remaining bedbug are put on show, but then suddenly Ivan realises that there are people watching him in the audience, people like him who have messy incomplete lives... The Bedbug is ironic and funny, a glorious hopeless musical tragedy."

This extract was taken from the website of Strode College where the play will be performed on Wednesday 24th, Thursday 25th & Friday 26th March 7.45pm, before a performance at the Theatre Royal in Bath in May. At this production the Director is Sarah McCourt, the Musical Director is James Phippen and Choreographer: John Oram. I had a chat with the Director who said that their production has 26 students in it (including one contortionist!) and that the cast is 3/4 female. The play is underscored throughout and there is a lot of dancing in it. There are a total of 21 different pieces of music in it and the songs are a mix of Russian style folk songs and those that have echoes of modern pop, some sounding Beatlesesque and a few sounding a bit like Spandau Ballet. The "show stopper"  and particular favourite is a duet between the two main characters called "The Love Boat Has Crashed".

Bed Bug is also being performed at The Castle in Wellingborough on 16th March by Northampton Boys School and on 1st May at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle by Stockton Riverside College

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