SCENE ONE
OUTSIDE MOTHER GOOSE’S COTTAGE
Music cue 2: Heidi and Chorus. After song ends…
Enter Jack and Jill [SR] looking glum.
CHORUS 1: Look, everybody, it’s Jack and Jill!
CHORUS 2: How’s the water fetching business these days, guys?
JACK & JILL: [glum] Terrible.
CHORUS 3: How come?
CHORUS 4: You haven’t fallen down that steep hill again, have you?
JACK: No, after that happened, health and safety made the council install a handrail all the way to the top.
JILL: It certainly made our water fetching a lot easier, I can tell you.
HEIDI: Then why are you both looking glum?
JACK: It’s because old Baron Hardup has confiscated our water buckets.
JILL: And now we can’t make a living fetching water for people.
HEIDI: But Baron Hardup’s always been such a kindly old gentleman.
JACK: Well, since becoming Pantoland’s new tax-collector, he’s turned nasty.
JILL: He turns up with his bailiffs and demands payment on the spot.
JACK: And if you can’t pay up, his bailiffs confiscate all your stuff, or evict you.
HEIDI: How awful!
Enter Little Bo Peep [SL] crying.
CHORUS: It’s Little Bo Peep!
HEIDI: Why are you crying, Bo Peep?
BO PEEP: Baron Hardup has confiscated all my little lambs just because I couldn’t pay my taxes.
HEIDI: That was a mean thing to do.
BO PEEP: He said if I don’t pay up by tomorrow, they’ll all end up in shepherd’s pies.
HEIDI: How could anybody be so wicked?
BO PEEP: [sobs] I might never see my poor little lambs again.
HEIDI: Cinderella will be horrified when she discovers what her father’s up to.
BO PEEP: She already knows. He evicted her and Prince Charming from their royal palace for failing to pay inheritance tax.
HEIDI: Poor Cinders. Her father’s turned out nastier than her wicked stepmother.
JACK: And her Fairy Godmother can’t help her this time.
HEIDI: Why not?
JILL: The Baron confiscated her magic wand for refusing to pay a spell tax.
Enter Little Boy Blue [SL] wailing.
BOY BLUE: It’s not fair! It’s just not fair!
JACK: It looks like Little Boy Blue could be the Baron’s latest victim.
JILL: What’s happened to you, Little Boy Blue?
BOY BLUE: I was on my way to Old McDonald’s farm as usual, when I bumped into Baron Hardup and his bailiffs.
JACK: Let me guess; he said you owed lots of taxes?
BOY BLUE: Yes, and when I couldn’t pay up, he confiscated my solid silver horn.
HEIDI: No wonder you’re upset.
BOY BLUE: Now the sheep are in the meadow and the cows are in the corn, and without my horn, I can’t call them.
JILL: Couldn’t you use a loudhailer instead?
BOY BLUE: Can you imagine little children singing, ‘Little Boy Blue, come blow your loudhailer’? The whole integrity of the nursery rhyme would be ruined.
HEIDI: People are leaving Pantoland because they can’t afford all the new taxes.
JACK: At this rate there’ll soon be nobody left.
JILL: And that could spell the end of panto, forever.
HEIDI: We must stop the Baron, somehow.
JILL: Yes, Heidi, but how?
Enter Mother Goose from cottage.
M GOOSE: Why are you all congregating outside my house? Has my chimney fallen down or something?
HEIDI: No, Mum, we’re just discussing what to do about Baron Hardup.
M GOOSE: What’s the old reprobate been up to now?
JACK: He’s out collecting taxes with his bailiffs.
JILL: And if you can’t pay up, his bailiffs confiscate your stuff or even evict you.
BO PEEP: He’s confiscated all my little lambs.
BOY BLUE: And my silver horn.
M GOOSE: The swine! And to think I almost married him.
HEIDI: I didn’t know that, Mum!
M GOOSE: He proposed to me when I was young and fancy-free. He took me in his arms. ‘Take off my hat’, I said, and he did. ‘Take of my coat’, I said, and he did. ‘Take off my dress’, I said, and he did. ‘Now’, I said, ‘don’t ever wear them again’. But I turned down his marriage proposal because I still had lots of wild oats to sow, and I’m glad I did now.
HEIDI: Which, mum? Sow your wild oats, or turn him down?
M GOOSE: Both, Heidi.
JACK: We need somewhere safe to hide from him and his bailiffs.
M GOOSE: Take them to the seven dwarfs old cottage, Heidi. It’s been empty ever since Dopey won the lottery and bought them all a seven-bedroomed house in…[local posh area]
HEIDI: Yes, Mum. Follow me everybody!
Exit Heidi, Jack and Jill, Little Bo Peep and Little Boy Blue [SR]
CHORUS 1: I’m going to barricade my home to stop the Baron from taking all my stuff.
CHORUS 2: Maybe you should do likewise, Mother Goose.
Exit Chorus [SR]
M GOOSE: I’d like to see the Baron try to get his hands on my bits and pieces. [hoists bosom] Excuse me if I look a bit tired this morning, only I was out clubbing all night at…[local club] Have any of you been? It’s brill, isn’t it? And NHS Direct said the hearing loss should only be temporary. I wonder how much longer my son, Billy will be? He went to market to sell some goose eggs, and I’m hoping to get enough to pay my council tax. I’d better go and sort Little Tommy Tucker’s breakfast. Bye! [exits inside]
Enter Silly Billy [SL]
SILLY BILLY: Hiya, folks! I’m Billy Goose! Some people call me ‘Silly Billy’, but I don’t think that’s fair; I’m quite clever, really. For instance, I’ve just had a little accident with two dozen goose eggs, and they all got smashed. But I don’t want Mum to find out, so I bought two dozen eggs from Tesco and sold them at market instead. Wasn’t that clever of me? Oh, hang on. I sold the eggs for less than I paid Tesco for them. [goofy face] What am I like? Maybe I deserve to be called ‘Silly Billy’ after all. I tell you what. Whenever you hear me say, ‘what am I like’? Will you all shout back, ‘you’re a Silly Billy’? And it’ll remind me not to be silly in future. Let’s have a practice shall we? What am I like? Fantastic!
