Musicals Reviews: Minotaur and A-la-la-la-la-laddin

The School Musicals Company is a family business which set out to ‘bring stories to life with an up-to-date, humorous approach that actually “gets kids” and what they are exposed to’. They have for several years now been producing high-quality new musical plays for children to perform, with attractive and comprehensively thought-through books and CDs containing all the information a teacher needs to mount a production with Primary age students. Some of the company's products were awarded with the ‘Outstanding Musical Theatre/Drama Resource’ award in the Music Teacher Awards for Excellence 2019, and these two newest additions to the collection live up to the usual excellent standard of their output.

Minotaur

(AGES 7–11) £33.85

Minotaur, (‘an a-maze-ing mythical musical’) by Niki Davies, is a seven-scene, eight-song musical with scope for a cast of up to 66 and exactly the right spread of speaking roles – from no lines up to 32 – to involve students of all abilities and ages across Key Stages 1 and 2 in the fun.

King Minos is dealing badly with the nasty truth of having a human-flesh-hungry beast living in the labyrinth in his back garden. He responds to the stress in the only way he knows how, summoning his navy and setting off to cause havoc in other cities. Landing with his invading force in Athens, he strikes a deal with King Aegeus that he will leave Athens alone in return for 14 Athenian children to take home and feed to the Minotaur. Aegeus’ son Theseus decides to go along himself and try to kill the beast – which, with some cunning assistance from Minos’ daughter Ariadne, who's looking for a way off the island, he does – and we end with a party.

The writing is simple, easy for children to learn and perform, but also fun, with lots of comedy roles and sarky asides which will delight the grown-ups in the audience. Musically, there is plenty of variety in the style of each of the songs, all manageable lengths to learn and with melodies in the ideal register for performers of this age: my favourite number is definitely ‘We're on the menu’ which has in its melodic line and in the instrumentation of the pre-recorded accompaniment exactly the right pinch of ‘Greekness’ about it – ‘He doesn't want souvlaki or a feta cheese buffet/‘Cos we are the next dish of the day…’

Like all School Musicals Company shows, the book of the show contains lots of teacher-friendly features such as specific advice on adapting for smaller or larger casts; ideas on staging, costume, props and sound effects; notes on the performance of each song; and ‘further learning opportunities’ with lesson themes and activities on topics such as Minoan culture, trade across the ocean, food, and a different ending for the show (what if the Minotaur were persuaded to change his diet?) Sheet music is provided for voice, piano and guitar, and the backing tracks on CD come with and without the sung line.

A-la-la-la-la-laddin

(AGES 9–13) £33.95

A-la-la-la-la-laddin (A Musical Tale of Gems and Genies) by Tom Kirkham and Matthew Crossey is a longer, two-act work, with a smaller cast of bigger speaking parts (33, plus ensemble) and is suitable for older performers than Minotaur. Again, the show has all the hallmarks of a School Musicals Company work – with lots of fun comedy roles, witty lyrics, and simple-but-interesting melodies.

The music for this show gets better and more varied as it goes along, with the ‘Song of the Soldiers’ rap in Act 2 standing out as a crowd-pleaser (as will comedy roles of the Guards who sing it – guaranteed to steal the show in each of their spoken scenes), but crucially also something that kids will love to learn and perform. There is also a fabulous ‘menacing swing’ number, called ‘Revenge’ for the baddies to get their chops around.

In the storytelling, it's a relief to find the writers avoiding the old ‘boy meets girl, happily ever after’ trope and giving Princess Zahra a strong independent voice, as well as giving one of Aladdin's friends the opportunity to challenge some of his rather thoughtless behaviour.

Ideas for curriculum links in this book focus on reading, writing, and speaking and listening – and alongside the offer of an editable script also made in Minotaur, there are notes about holding auditions for the production.

Depending on the age range of your students, these shows cannot fail to engage them and entertain their audiences, as well as offering wider cross-curricular learning opportunities. Let's hope it will soon be possible for them to perform together live and in large numbers once again.

The School Musicals Company www.theschoolmusicalscompany.com