National Theatre

Bedbug: The Musical

by Snoo Wilson

music by Gary Kemp & Guy Pratt

The Bedbug is a fable, in the same way that Animal Farm is a fable, and just as wonderful and original and dangerous.
Ivan Varlet, a boozy mechanic and Party Member is having an arranged marriage with a hairdresser, who wishes to have the security of a genuine card carrying proletarian husband. Ivan's proletarian self-improving efforts to join the hairdressing (bourgeoise) classes come to grief during the wedding when the guests set fire to the house during an altercation between Hairdressers and Mechanics, burning everything to cinders.

The fire brigade are too drunk to save them, but they manage to wash Ivan into the cellar where he is immediately frozen in a block of ice, only to be thawed out again live, fifty years later and displayed in a zoo as a specimen of what humanity was like before the glorious revolution. But meanwhile, 'humanity' has evolved and concepts like romantic love are extinct.

For details of all the other performances in this season, go to Shell Connections 2004

Full details can be found at www.shellconnections.org

Bedbug: The Musical finished on: 13 July 2004