Dazzle
About the Production
In a world of multi-million dollar science-fiction movies, it’s a brave amateur theatre group who takes on a supposed ‘out of this world’ musical play that was intended to parody the much-loved TV series (and subsequent movies) of ‘Star Trek’. John Gardiner also wrote ‘The Dracula Spectacula’ which Workshop performed back in 1977, and would again, no doubt (at least in part) why Chris Argles chose it to direct. However, like its predecessor, the story is only very loosely based on its source material.
At some point in a far-flung future, Sam Galactic of the Star Blade Squadron is welcomed as a hero by Sekurikor, the President of Homeworld, and entrusted with his first command, that of the starship Sunburster One. He and his crew are then given the relatively mundane task of taking the president’s daughter, Dazzle Star, to a finishing school on Procyon. En route, they are intercepted by a Red Star vessel commanded by Big Olga, and then have Dazzle Star kidnapped by spacefaring Irish pirates, before finding out the true purpose of the mission. To complete it, and guarantee the future of mankind, Sam and Dazzle Star must throw themselves back in time to the 1960’s and survive an unlikely encounter with a greasy, leather-clad motorcycle gang led by the daunting Sue Zuki.
Of course, that’s only how it started out. Though the story may have remained much the same, Workshop took exception to a lot of the treatment meted out to the various characters. In the script, the ship’s doctor inexplicably sounded like one-time world champion boxer Muhammad Ali. That went. The random Irish pirates were ditched in favour of the classic Trek villains, Klingons, with all the gags that you can imagine the name entails, and their song became a spoof of ‘Pink Elephants On Parade’ from Walt Disney’s ‘Dumbo’ (Why? Ask Mark Taylor. But it was great fun.).The captain developed a middle initial to become Sam T Galactic. The ship lost a number and gained a ‘USS’ prefix, and the set of the ship’s bridge was as close to an exact copy of the original Enterprise as our limited budget could manage. The wardrobe guidelines were thrown out too, and in came fairly faithful reproductions of the classic Starfleet uniforms.
We boldly went where Samuel French didn’t expect us to go.
The Cast
Behind the Scenes
Image Gallery
The Reviews
This starship's built with enterprise
Theatre Workshop Coulsdon’s mission is to boldly take us into realms where no man has been before.
Sponsored by Duotronic household goods, makers of Space-Pak capsules, Captain Sam T Galactic flies us by the seat of our terrestrial pants in Starship Sunburster, overcoming evil Red Star Kommissar Big Olga, getting caught in the slimefield of the Klingon Empire, and straightening out a pack of ’60s greasers before touching down again on terra firma.
It’s all good fun, and a full house at Sunday’s matinee performance gave it the thumbs up. Director Chris Argles, tongue firmly in cheek, has neatly caught the spirit of parody, and Star Trek will never seem quite the same again. Hoary old jokes pepper the script (yes, writing pepper), and space age cliches abound. After all, as one of the songs has it, if Dan Dare did it, I bet that they can do it too.
Talking of songs, skill in putting over a number is one of the strongest features of this show. You can’t always hear the words, but MD Mark Taylor provides a swinging sound.
The starship crew work well as a team, with a specially endearing performance by Tim Young as Chief Engineer Mr Paddy, who couldn’t engineer his way out of a paper bag. Bruce Montgomery is old Big Ears, Mr Speck, applying Vulcan logic to tasks great and small.
Heidi Bush is an amply villainous Big Olga, Mike Brown and Paul M Ford lead the Klingon menace with a flourish, and Rebecca Ford heads the Greasers with a swagger.
Neil Grew is the Homeworld DJ who brings it all together.
Donald Madgwick for The Croydon Advertiser
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