UNITED KINGDOM: "Ducktastic" - the new West End show from the hit duo behind "The Play What I Wrote" is about to open in London, featuring for the first time ever a group of ducks

Record ID: 791793

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: "Ducktastic" - the new West End show from the hit duo behind "The Play What I Wrote" is about to open in London, featuring for the first time ever a group of ducks
  • Date: 10th November 2005
  • Summary: SCENE FROM "DUCKTASTIC"
  • Embargoed: 25th November 2005 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Kingdom
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVAB5MWVJVC0IID8SYDU5PKOP4OW
  • Story Text: They will be the first ever ducks to appear in London's West End. A group of white Indian Runner ducks are the stars of a play set to take audiences by storm.
    "Ducktastic" is the new comedy spectacular written by Hamish McColl and Sean Foley, the brains behind the smash hit "The Play what I Wrote". Again, the duo has teamed up with Kenneth Branagh who is making his debut in directing ducks!
    "I didn't know much about ducks before I started this and now I know a little more and I found them very friendly and very co-operative and good fun, good company actually. I love animals and what amazes me is how characterful they are which is great because they're all individuals but it means you can't just show them - and the theme of the show is part of this - like dumb animals, no matter how daft people think ducks might be, they all have their own particular personalities," Branagh said. After the experience of duck-actors, Branagh said his approach changed somewhat. " I think it's fair to say that we have a group of ducks in this show who are very keen on improvisation and to some extent it doesn't matter how much they might like one particular thing, they often have their own ideas about how to improve the show so I wouldn't say they're undisciplined ducks, sometimes we've had creative differences, and I think sometimes they felt my ideas weren't as good as their own and they've been a little quietly, creatively rebellious and they've done their own things which I found quite hard to accommodate, what's also delightful, what we often do, what we hadn't planned is it lends a certain kind of sweet anarchy to the show, that means that the performers are very much on their toes."
    Whereas the Olivier Award-winning "The Play What I Wrote" was inspired by Morecambe and Wise, Hamish McColl and Sean Foley now take their inspiration from the world's master illusionists Siegfried and Roy in Las Vegas. Hamish McColl plays 'Christopher Ursula Sassoon', whilst Sean Foley plays 'Roy de la Rue' (ne Street) a pet shop proprietor from Portsmouth - two lads wanting to be world famous illusionists. Joining them on stage is a cast of 26 ducks, including Daphne. "We are absolutely enchanted to be working with these animals, they are beautiful Indian Runner ducks and very largely they boss us around, they have the best dressing room ..yes best dressing room and they do what they like on stage, continually running through our lines, it brings a wonderful live element to the show because they are brilliantly trained by Dave Souza of Birds and Animals UK although sometimes they have their own take on things," the two said. "They've learned a number of skills, the duck repertoire - I mean they don't play the piano, anything like that, but they do movement skills, they come on cue and there's a character, her name is Daphne, and she has lots of tricks up her sleeve, she's really magic, not the magicians, so she weaves a web of Duckmagic around the night and that is how all the characters come together in what is a sort of love story isn't it? Yes, because this is a comedy play so all the characters who come involved in the show have something to learn in the lightest way, there's songs and visual gags , verbal gags and slapsticks, we all try and put as many elements of entertainment and of course the illusions themselves are fantastic. We try and put as many elements of entertainment into the show as we can but giving a story that people are touched we hope by something else as well as just the laughter," they added. Ducktastic will open in London at the Albery Theatre on Wednesday 19 October.
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