JACK AND THE BEANSTALK

CAST LIST

(In order of appearance)

Dame Edna Trot   -   a poor widow left destitute by the loss of her husband
Idle Jack   -   her oldest son
Simple Simon   -   her youngest son ... she claims she found him on the doorstep
Esmeralda the cow
Ted E. Baron   -   he owns the cottage and wants to evict the dame and her sons
Terminator One   -   big, tough, strong and speaks with a German accent
Terminator Two   -   pink, frilly and camp
Milkman   -   (or woman) ... a walk-on part
Deirdre   -   an environmental protester
Daphne   -   a newly recruited protester and a bit wet
Mrs Mop   -   the Giant's housekeeper
A. Giant / Alice   -   an equal opportunities giant
Meg the Hen   -   lays salmonella-free golden eggs
Children   -  as many as you want to involve
B.U.L.L. Operative 1   -   wants to buy the cow
B.U.L.L. Operative 2
Ivor Bucket   -   A man of the soil ... and still wearing some of it
Andy McTrowel   -   Ivor and Andy also want to buy Esmeralda
Al Kaseltza   -   a catering racketeer
Anne Chovey   -   Al's moll / sidekick
Motorway Catering Services Representative 1   -   a typical bureaucrat
Motorway Catering Services Representative 2   -   a clone of the above
Spud-U-Love Representative   -   dressed in a giant potato costume
Spice Rack Girl 1   -   haut couture for the age of girl power
Spice Rack Girl 2
Killer Black   -   a shrill Liverpool accent that can shatter glass at fifty paces

The cast list is flexible.  Some of the characters (like Deirdre and Daphne or
the Motorway Catering Services Representatives) are not essential to the plot
and can be left out if you haven't enough actors or want to shorten the performance.

Some parts can be played as a male or a female without any loss of effect. However,
the Dame is traditionally played in drag.  Idle Jack is ideally a principal boy
in fishnet tights and Terminator Two's camp comedy isn't funny unless delivered
by a man.

The Milkman, the two B.U.L.L. operatives, Andy McTrowel, the two
Motorway Catering Services reps and the Spu-U-Love rep. could all be either
gender without any significant change to the script.

THE PLOT

The Dame's cottage is on the route of a proposed six-lane bypass.  (If you have one
planned locally, use that.  Otherwise choose the quietest, prettiest and least
trafficked place in your area and invent a bypass scheme for it.)  Why not put a form
on the back of your programmes so that the audience can sign a petition against the
road scheme?

Ted E. Baron wants to evict Dame Trot and her boys so that he can build a service
area on the land.  He hires the Terminators as bailiffs.

To raise the rent, the Dame and her sons sell the cow, but not before a strange
procession of bidders have visited the cottage and the Dame has received
(in her bottom) a syringe full of medicine meant for the cow!

Simple Simon plants the beans that they get for the cow and Jack climbs the beanstalk.
He is almost frightened away by the booming voice and blood-curdling threats of an
unseen giant.

Back down in the cottage, Ted E. Baron and his bailiffs are interviewing prospective
sub-contractors for the motorway catering contract.  There are some very odd characters.

Jack discovers that the giant has died and the family business is being carried on by his
pretty and diminutive daughter Alice.  Jack and Alice fall in love (there's an unusual twist)
and together they return to frighten away the Terminators. They pay the rent with a
golden egg laid by the giant's hen.

The Dame (dressed by Spice Rack plc) is a contestant in Killer Black's  'Blind Date'.
She chooses Ted E. Baron (who is hidden behind the partition) and they agree to tie the knot.

Everybody lives happily ever after.

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