School Musical Comes to an End – 12 February 2010

HONKING BRILLIANTING_Alex Parsons as Queenie the Cat, Andrew Burdett as Ugly, and Lorna Young as Lowbutt.

Alex Parsons as Queenie the Cat, Andrew Burdett as Ugly, and Lorna Young as Lowbutt.

Anyone who has followed this blog from the start (back in November) will know that since September I have been working on a musical. Called ‘Honk!’, it is a musical comedy by Stiles and Drewe. ‘Honk!’ tells the story of the Ugly Duckling, and is a musical, funky version of Hans Christian Andersen’s much loved tale.

For the last few mornings, I have been around all of the forms in costume, advertising the show and encouraging people to come and watch it. It got four shows; one matinee to the Junior School, and one every night on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Last night, (Thursday), six months of work came to an end, and I was incredibly proud and honoured when myself and the cast received a standing ovation. I am trying to get some photos of the show for you, but I haven’t even got them myself yet. I was, however, in the local newspaper yesterday, as a plug for the show. We’ll see if we can find some kind of clipping from that for you.

But, I was so happy and thankful to everyone working backstage without nearly as much praise as the cast. They are the real superstars of the show, and without them – quite simply – there would be no show.

I stayed on to help ‘strike the set’, taking it all down to be driven back to the company whom we hired it from this (Friday) morning. It was also good, as it let me thank all of those marvellous techies, stage management, and band members.

Until next time,

Andrew xx

Andrew Burdett

Andrew Burdett is a twenty-something from Maidenhead in Berkshire, working for ITV News.