Scouts! The Musical
- Robert Beale
- Jun 13
- 2 min read
Sam Cochrane and David Fallon
Gigglemug Theatre
Hope Mill Theatre, Manchester
June 10-15, 2025: 1 hr 55 mins
You don’t have to be (or to have been) in the Scouts to enjoy Scouts! The Musical, but it helps.
Created by Gigglemug Theatre, a company that began with students at the University of Warwick and has won accolades and acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe and elsewhere, the show contains copious references to badges (for everything), learning to tie knots (useless or otherwise), expeditions (with uncooked food) and enjoying the great outdoors (in the rain). Ah yes, I remember it well.
The seven-strong troupe presents a fast-moving sequence of songs and storytelling with a basic storyline that we are seeing the annual “Scout Games”, in which competitors are tested on their knowledge and skills in an elimination process. In Sam Cochrane’s production, the cast members are all multi-instrumentalists and singers, and a lot of their brilliance is in seamlessly moving from one skillset to the next, accompanying themselves and each other, and acting their roles at the same time, largely under the musical direction of Rob Gathercole. Cleverly, the performers begin by getting audience members to join in – and remember, there are to be no phones!
You soon realise it’s all really about two youngsters (Eliza, played by Eleanor Fransch, and Joe, played by Burhan Kathawala) whose fortunes we are to follow through thick and thin. There’s an evil female who has cheated in the past and wants to win by foul play (Charlotte, played by Emily Kitchingham), while Kemi Clarke is the good but sometimes self-doubting scout leader, Dylan, and Katie Pritchard is Rosie, a young Scout tempted to the dark side, and Heather Gourdie is narrator (to ensure occasional Brechtian distancing).
Interleaved with this there are appearances by a TV survivalist and lover of nature called Linus Lionheart (Rob Gathercole), with his weary film crew – I wonder who that could be a dig at? Bear Grylls apparently thinks the show is “incredible”.
Of course, good wins out in the end, with plenty of affirmative lyrics like “Remember, when you’re feeling low, you’re more of a Scout than you’ll ever know” and “With a friend by your side, you’re at home”; and the motto of “These are your skills for life” is hammered home at the end.
It’s all over in under two hours, suitable for ages six and above, and a lot of fun.
More info and tickets here
