Looking back

The Missing Whatsit is our affectionate, cheeky yet respectful, look at Sherlock Holmes. It is both a conventional comedy play and an interactive piece of theatre; full of humour, which fondly parodies the classic take on the world of who is, undoubtedly, the world’s most famous “consulting detective”.

The Missing Whatsit is Holmes’ forgotten case and is a comic ETC play in our home style together with most of what you would expect from a Holmesian story: put together in an accessible, humorous and original way.

Serendipity is an interdisciplinary English language play specifically written for this age group and is a small ode to the pleasure of learning – not an easy task to convey to this age.

Our hero, Tom, is the typical bright, popular, lazy schoolboy whose main aim at school is to pass his exams with the least possible effort on his part and never, never, ever let school work interfere in his real life with his friends, his sports, his games, his music and all the other many entertainments he has. He has so much to do that there simply isn’t that much time for such things as studying.

One day something happens that takes Tom on a journey which makes him discover to his astonishment that learning can not only be useful, but can often be fun in itself.

MeTV is the story of Ben, a schoolboy who is crying out for something exciting to happen to him. MeTV is about what happens when two peculiar strangers, Agents Smith and Jones, decide to make him famous – by whatever means they can.

MeTV takes an extremely satirical look at a media world that applauds success above intention; rewards the famous above the deserving; glories wealth regardless of how this wealth is used and promotes above all the notion of self over any concept of the group.
Through a series of sketches put together to form a narrative MeTV takes a hilarious, yet somewhat chilling, look at a world that perhaps is given much more importance than it in fact merits.

Kelly’s Day Out is a comic play about chance and the consequences of simple actions. The story is about what happens when Kelly gets on the wrong bus on her way to school one day. That simple. However, it’s a special bus that can take you anywhere - whether past, present, or future and where you can meet anyone - whether real or fictional. The problem is: knowing what you would like to do.

So where does Kelly go? Who does she meet? What adventures does she have? Watch and see in Kelly’s Day Out, a fast-moving comedy; filled with music where the ending very much depends on what the children say.

Home Truths is a comic play about the importance of the past. The central character, Dan, is a typical schoolboy; a bit lazy, more interested in enjoying himself, in being with his friends, than in actually really learning anything.

Dan is really modern, very charming, extremely fashion conscious, and entirely convinced that anything old is necessarily bad, boring and better ignored. One day Dan comes across a book and gets trapped in it - literally. Through some kind of worm hole he finds himself travelling through time and discovers that the past is not exactly quite as he imagined it to be.

Home Truths is a highly involving interactive comedy in ETC's house style.

"You should think before you act. Right, we all agree on that. But, how much? What's the right amount? If you think too much then do you do too little? And you shouldn't be reckless. Again we probably agree. But when does being cautious become being afraid? Tricky, this being balanced thing!"

Swings and Clouds brings us Jake. Jake worries about everything. His normal pattern of thought is: "Well if I do this then something terrible is bound to happen so I shouldn't. But if I don't then what will happen?"

Swings and Clouds is a new ETC comedy about Jake - and his bizarre family (a grandmother who thinks it is still 1968, a mother who is still attached to a stuffed cat and a father who can only talk on the phone: among others) which looks at the difficulty in striking a balance between thought and action.

Not One of Us is a comic play about a not so funny situation – intolerance towards others. Jack is a new boy at school and he is odd. There’s no getting away from it. He is unusual, not like the other kids. He thinks differently, has a different cultural base. His clothes are far from fashionable and his values don’t really fit in.

Not One of Us looks at Jack’s first week at school and how two different cultures (Jack’s and everybody else’s) clash and how they try to work things out.

Checkmate is a surreal spoof somewhere between a satire of an Agatha Christie detective story and an exaggerated send up of a TV soap.

Checkmate is both a conventional comedy play and an interactive piece of theatre which is full of humour and parodies the classic murder in the country mansion by hand unknown in a modern, surreal way while still remaining a fond pastiche of that type of theatre.

Imagine the board game, Cluedo, written as a soap opera for day time television and you approach the world of Checkmate, a new play and a slightly new direction but still in ETC’s home style.

Passing Tales is a modern fairy tale that starts at the end and then goes somewhere else altogether.
“Will you marry me beautiful young village girl?” said the Prince
“No way,” said Jo, “I want my own life with fun and adventure. I’m out of here.”
And so she was.

Passing Tales rewrites many of the famous tales mixing the classic stories, the cartoon style of Tex Avery and the cinema giants as we follow Jo on her determined quest to not do what is expected of her.

Strange Bedfellows is a richly comic, satirical look at the society we have made for ourselves centred in the world of work.

It is the story of Desmond; the office boy, who, through a series of odd happenings, has to suddenly fill the role of managing director in an important negotiation with an major multinational. Desmond, considered by his workmates as little more than an idiot, is in fact an original character with a unique way of looking at the things.

Loosely based on some the works of Charles Dickens, Charlie Chaplin, Peter Sellers and Robert Tressell, Strange Bedfellows looks at many of the ordinary everyday things we take for granted in a fresh and satirical way and is a hilarious and sometimes surprising look at ourselves.

What happens when you open your front door of your house and everything is different? Your parents are there but they are not quite the same. Your friends are different. 'Why?' you wonder. 'What's happening?' The answer is really quite simple. You are lost in The Game.  

But what is The Game? Who is playing it?, and, more importantly, - How do you get out of it?

Halcyon Days is a play about Shakespeare, acting, crime, punishment, philosophy and fish. Johnny Boy and Roz (Rosalind – alias Bob) two bumbling burglars come across Shakespeare’s diary. By some freak occurrence Roz (a.k.a. Bob) falls into the book and reappears in Tudor England on the stage at The Globe on a crucial day for Shakespeare when he and his actors are rehearsing for an audition for Queen Elizabeth 1 the following day. 

Halcyon Days is a comic ETC play in our home style together with most of the famous passages from Shakespeare put together in an accessible, humorous and original way. 

Too much… is a comic satire about contrasts which poses the question: Can you only have too much if someone else has too little? What is too much? And too little? Who can draw the line? How do these things come about? How do they change through time? Who changes them?

Through a series of sketches, songs and music put together to form a narrative whole, we look at many of the ordinary everyday factors in our lives: school, work, family, friendship, authority, entertainment, culture and consider them in a original and satirical way.

J. A. B. is a comic play within a comic play. Very loosely based on three classic stories from British Literature: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde; Frankenstein and Dracula, J. A. B. is given the full ETC treatment when a small, deservedly unsuccessful, charmingly inept film company is mistakenly given the job of preparing the script for next summer’s biggest Hollywood epic.

J.A.B. includes a full range of Hollywood heroes that are ever so slightly wrong and is really two plays in one and it both treats the classic literature, is a spoof of the Hollywood blockbuster and also looks at the nature of writing itself and all this in our established ETC comedy style.

Rewind is a comedy about Pat, an ordinary, likeable schoolboy who thinks he has got problems: at home, at school, with his friends etc... Things just don’t seem to work out right for him. They don’t go how he would like them to and Pat thinks the main problem is himself. He wishes he could change things, that he could be different, that he could go back in time and do things differently.

One day he comes across a strange character who gives him a remote control. ‘Big deal!’ Pat says, until he discovers that with this remote control he can rewind time. But, can Pat change his life and be more like the person he would like to be?

Mad4U is much more than the world’s most popular youth magazine programme – it is a way of life for countless young people. Mad4U’s presenters are household names, the magazine’s opinions are taken as gospel, its advice followed diligently, its articles, reports, and stories are awaited with bated breath. Its fiction and its soaps are viewed as more than real. No teenager or young adult can really have a point of view that hasn’t been at least partly formed by Mad4U.

Mad4U2 is a supercharged version of Mad4U which approaches native English level. Aimed at the more advanced students Mad4U2 follows the same format as its sister show and has one or two sketches in common but has a different base script as well as having other new sketches written especially with this audience in mind.

Pigs Might Fly is a fantasy play about a David; a boy who can only think of himself and whose favourite expression is "I want."

One day, David gets lost in a magical and mysterious world, peopled with strange characters who are all as selfish as he is and who present him with a series of tasks that the audience has to help him with until, gradually, he learns that the way out of this world is to think of others as well as to think of himself.In a very visual style through easily comprehensible language the actors encourage the audience to help David escape from this new dimension and get back home.

What can TV and the media be like in the year 2025? The way things are going! Reality shows, competition between news channels to show the most striking images, the control of companies through their advertising over what TV stations actually show. What next? Channel 2 Channel is a surreal and often hilarious look at the media in the year 2025 when all of life is a television studio. Through a series of sketches, songs and music the audience witnesses a frenetic day in the studio of Channel 2 Channel - the world's most popular TV station where things start to go a little bit wrong.

Family Matters is a comic satirical play that takes an exaggerated and at times hilarious look at the family and at many of the problems, the stresses and conflicts that happen there.

Family Matters looks at the point of view of various family members, at various times throughout history both in the past, present and future and through a series of sketches that form a narrative Family Matters looks at something most of us just take for granted – again in our comic ETC style.

In Go For It Stephen Dork doesn't have an easy life. His workaholic parents largely ignore him; his image conscious schoolmates make fun of him. The girl he likes doesn't even know he exists. He's lonely and isolated. He feels a misfit. What does Stephen do about this? He writes. He keeps a diary where he writes, not only what happens but what he would like to happen. In his diary anything can take place; Stephen can be anything and anybody he wants.

Chris is a boy who has a problem with time. He is always late. He can never finish anything on time, and he can never remember when he should be doing something. There are not enough hours in the days for him.

One day, the clock strikes thirteen times - Thirteen O'clock - and everything is changed, everything is slightly different. The world and time stands still. There is only now. There is no future and no consequences or penalties. At first Chris loves the freedom of being able to do whatever he wants but, when he meets some other characters trapped there, he realises that he has to escape and return home.

Joey is a normal young boy. As such, he can be wonderfully good or horribly bad - depending on his mood. Normal. But what happens if evil comes and takes him over? What happens if evil brings out only his bad side? What happens if evil is a virus that anyone can catch? What happens if the only way to conquer evil is to know the password? And who knows the Password?

These are largely our very early work. A few of these ideas found their way into later, more mature plays while others simply fell by the wayside as, thanks to your custom, we gained in experience and - we like to feel - got better.

You may remember some of them; perhaps as a student.

Robin's Tale; The Chase; Adam's Atomic Socks; Janet Tomkinson and her Amazing Secret Adventures; Betty's Gang; Quest; Fable; You Too!; Academy Times; Dream On; The Why Files; School Daze; School's Out; New Brave World; The Caller; Website Story;
Now or Never; SOAP; A Day in the Braces; The Adolescence of Life; The Visitor.