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Canberra Today 18°/22° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Duckling in a new guise

“HONK! The Musical” is Ickle Pickle Productions’ version of Hans Christian Andersen’s “Ugly Duckling” story.

It stars one of Canberra’s up-and-coming talents, 12-year-old Kaitlin Nihill, who played the guardian dragon Mushu in last year’s production of “Mulan” and now takes on the role of the little duckling, or should we say swan?

Justin Watson is producing the show, another in his company’s long line of scripts never before seen in Canberra, alternating with local products such as the pantomimes of Peter MacDonald that are set to original music.

“We develop brand-new scripts,” Watson says, “but this one is a finished work with finished music.”

“Honk! The Musical” will be directed by Cornelia Carson in her first role for Ickle Pickle. She’s a teacher at Queanbeyan Public School who staged “Cinderella” for Phoenix Players last year and has lots of experience with kids. She’ll need it to cope with 30 young people aged 10 to 18 playing all the characters in the barnyard.

Long-time Ickle Pickle designer Wayne Shepherd has come up with a set built to reflect the scale of the animal characters.

“Honk” won an Olivier Award in 2000 for Best New Musical. The script Ickle Pickle has the rights to is a “Broadway junior show”, but not too cut down, Watson says.

As you’d expect, it puts forward a message of tolerance, exactly as Hans Christian Andersen did in the original. These days, it’s often produced by schools, as well as regional and community theatre groups, in Britain, the US and Canada.

The show is for children and their parents and is set in the countryside and features Ugly, the little duckling who is rejected by everyone but his mum, Ida. There are other barnyard creatures, as well as an evil tomcat who wants Ugly for his dinner.

“Honk! The Musical”, Belconnen Theatre, January 13-28, bookings to 6262 6977.

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Helen Musa

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