Wednesday 18 April 2012

A New Musical: Foreigner

I've spent basically my entire work day doing this, which means it is a million times more productive than my regular day. We were discussing 'Mama Mia,' that Abba Musical, and thought about which other artists would be good to make a musical about. There's that Queen one, and someone said a Spice Girls musical is in development,*  and we agreed that a Meat Loaf one would be pompous and bombastic -pompastic, if you will- enough to work well. My idea, which we developed over the day, was a musical with songs from the 70s / 80s band Foreigner, a band I genuinely, inexplicably have a soft spot for. Here is an outline:

N.B. Due to a misunderstanding, I thought that Mama Mia changed the lyrics so that it would best fit  with the plot, for example, instead of 'Dancing Queen' they would sing about 'Dad's ice-cream' to the same tune. While that may seem like the maddest thing I've ever write, it was a simple misunderstanding, but it also explains why this foreigner musical is about a baker. So let's sit through and imagine(songs in bold):
 
FOREIGNER: BREAD GAMES 

we wake to find a man, at first successful, but now down on his luck... the song playing is...
BLUE MORNING, BLUE DAY- he sings along as he is rejected from job after job...
we cut to him on a dark street, a single street light flickering out to him, in silhouette... belting out...
I WANNA KNOW WHAT LIFE IS (i.e. 'I wanna know what love is') cut to black as he blacks out. Drunk? probably.

He has a miraculous dream where he is talked to by a giant, benevolent baker (I'm imagining Brian Blessed) who implants the importance of bread into his head- with a start he wakes up, we cut to a montage and the song... BREAD GAMES (i.e. 'Head Games') which shows him learning how to bake and make bread related items. It shows him making friends, and at the end, they all receive a loan to start their own bakery. It plays a small snippet of I WANNA KNOW WHAT LOAF IS but not enough to make people leave. They receive a certificate, they have drinks to celebrate. As he gets drunker, he begins chatting to a beautiful girl, though she is mean to him. She explains that her names is Luanne, and he breaks into song LUANNE. He sees her again later, and she remains incredibly mean to him, mocking his denim suit, his straggly hair, and his pot-belly. Our heroes friends all tell him to ignore her, because she's as... COLD AS ICE they all laugh, and agree to focus on baking (oh, I forgot to say, they're opening up a bakery together - why they're out drinking when they need to be up at 3am is something that a really good writer would be able to sort out). Scene cuts to dark.

Day dawning, frantic, possibly sexy baking action going on. As its their first time baking it... FEELS LIKE THE FIRST TIME, they chat away and banter (a word I hate), as people come in to buy bread (while dancing) it gets frantic, almost URGENT, time passes, and the first day is a success, and they stay popular...

The next morning. A beautiful woman comes in she looks a little like Luanne. She asks what kinds of bread there are. With a smile he answers that there is DOUBLE SEEDED (i.e. 'Double Vision'), there is also, croissants, bagels, and... he drops a loaf of white unseeded on the ground DIRTY WHITE BREAD (i.e. 'Dirty White Boy') she laughs (for some reason) and agrees, she introduces herself as Luanne's sister (though we don't get a reprise of that song). He asks her out, and she agrees, with a saucy wink. He smiles, and bursts into HOT BREADED (i.e. 'Hot Blooded'), before we cut to black.

Next day, they are meeting, and getting along fine, and she picks JUKE BOX HERO, on the jukebox, as she sits on his lap, the two in the throes of love, he belts out I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR A GIRL LIKE YOU at such intensity that her hair blows away. END.

Entire crowd of performers returns to stage and breaks into a medley, of all previous songs, which somehow doubles the length of the show. 

In conclusion, this would probably work better with videos, but I'm too lazy to do that for this madness. I have also missed out on adding 'BREAD BOX HERO' (Juke Box Hero) to the show. Also, this may seem like weak material, but there are literally hundreds of shows in the Edinburgh Festival worse than this. Hundreds.

P.S. And here is the logo that a work friend made (she's really pretty, so hasn't learnt to photshop):

*as an aside, I saw a woman once with 'SPICE' and 'GIRLS' tattooed on her knuckles. She had at least two kids.

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