Simon Egerton: “There’ll be lots of songs. And I can promise a few pandas”  

[prev] …tailor to the voices. I cast it before writing the songs, so was able to write for the instruments and the voices, knowing what they were going to be. And all of it has more than a nod to old musical comedy – swinging, toe-tapping stuff!

IS IT TRICKY, GETTING TOGETHER A CAST OF PEOPLE WHO CAN ACT AND PLAY THE INSTRUMENTS YOU NEED?
It’s a bit of a jigsaw puzzle. You have an idea about what you want, and there are certain things you have to fulfill. You want your core band – a couple of people who are very capable on keyboards, an anchor drummer, which in our case is Abanazar. But it gets harder as the process goes on and the needs get narrowed down. What’s tough is you can see people who would be wonderful in the part, but they’ve also got to be able to play well. We do have multi-instrumentalists – for example, people who play saxophone and trumpet and keys (though not all at the same time). Then you mix and match as you go, working out who’s free when. Twankey is the least free to play, partly because she has so many costume changes – in the tradition of ‘Oh my God, what’s she wearing now?’ On that front, we’ve got a wonderful designer coming in called Sue Condie who I worked with many years ago. She’s doing a lot in Scarborough at the Stephen Joseph Theatre, and at the New Vic in Stoke. We had a big design meeting yesterday, and the designs are looking great – very traditional, with lots of glitter!

WHAT WOULD YOU PICK OUT AS YOUR MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS?
Well, James Peake will have his tuba again… And Darren Machin is quite a good ukelele player, hence the Mr Pu song – a little nod to George Formby there. We’ve got some really good trumpet and sax players, so we’ll have that real swing band feel, and we’ll be using that for the company numbers. I just love that big band sound. And a lot of kids may not have heard those instruments played live, so seeing them being played and experiencing that big sound will be quite exciting. I still find it exciting!

AND IN KEEPING WITH TRADITION, THERE WILL BE SOME LOCAL ADDITIONS TO THE CAST…
Yes, we’re auditioning soon for the kids. We need three teams of either six or eight for the show, so we have open auditions on Sunday 20 September for kids from age 10 to 18. Those teams rotate so they share the shows, because some days there are two or three performances. It is very much a tradition at the Key – we hope there will be some from the Youth Theatre there, too, but we’d like to widen it out as much as possible to anyone who wants to come and have a go, so if you are interested, get in touch and come on down!

Beat the box office rush for this magical musical marvel – call the Key Theatre on 01733 207239 or visit www.vivacity-peterborough.com to book your tickets early.