Blog: Moon Horse Begins

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After a much deserved REST of... oooh, just over a week, when we technically WEREN'T doing a show at ALL, i met with Mr S Hewitt last night to start the ball rolling on our NEXT show business extravaganza: MOON HORSE!

For those who have been lucky enough NOT to have been cornered in a pub by me over the last few months, the general idea of MOON HORSE is pretty similar to the underlying THRUST of Dinosaur Planet in that it is a two-man science fiction ROCK OPERA featuring drama, thrills and SONGS. We DID think of doing a rather more SERIOUS tribute to Tebbs Lloyd-Johnson, but we were having so much fun with the SILLINESS (and just getting to be fairly PASSABLE at it too) that it seemed daft not to do a bit more.

The SCRIPT for the new show was on it's fourth draft, but it's never actually been DONE before - not out loud, at any rate, and certainaly not by the two of us together, so I felt ever so slightly TREPIDATIOUS about it. Would it actually be FUNNY? Would it make SENSE? Would the songs be OK?

Fifty minutes later, we had our answers: and they were all "YES! HOORAH!" for LO! it was actually pretty bloody good. The most WONDERFUL thing about it was how EASY it was to get into it - why, it's almost as if working together for the past year has made is somehow USED to it! It also probably helped that there's a core group of THE SAME JOKES, so we've had a bit of practice!

The main thing that SPRANG OUT of it for me was how EXCITINGLY POLITICAL it is. No, really, it is! I'm not referring to the Actual Historical Figures who appear in it (although BY HECK there is a MEAN Harold Wilson impersonation in there!), but to the bit towards the end where we do A MASSIVE METAPHOR about the banking crisis. We were actively GIGGLING during it - if the entire capitalist system collapse in the autumn you will be able to trace it DIRECTLY to some BANKERS hearing what we have, metaphorically, got to say about them. HECK YES! The only way it could be made MORE SATIRICAL would be if we had a HUGE BANNER with the word "SATIRE" written on it unfurl at the back during the song "The Price Of Your Mistake".

So yes, we thought it was quite good - there turn out to ALSO be opportunities for us both to do THE BIG ACTING (we are going for ALL the awards this time round) and there were even a couple of bits that were Quite Moving. Oh yes! Watch out BROADWAY, we are on the way!

Before THAT though we've got a few Actual GIGS to do, not least a spot at the Sunday Hullabaloo at The Wilmington on Sunday, when we're going to be doing a 15 minute SPOT. Apparently it is FINE to do things that are a bit "rough and ready" (hem hem) so Steve and I'll be doing TWO and a BIT songs from the new show! YIPES! We thus had a bit of an EXTRA PRACTICE at them, which i THINK means it should be OK... although the DANCE STEPS (yes, the DANCE STEPS) may need a bit of work.

Very very happy with a job well STARTED we retired to the pub for a celebratory pint. As you can probably tell, there was much excitement, also much RELIEF that it looks like it'll be OK. We've got ourselves a show!

posted 4/3/2011 by MJ Hibbett

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