| "Two guys are in a pub and decide to write a musical, but they get trapped in their show… they’re not looking forward to the love scene!" | | Ashley Frieze |
Two North East lads are headed for this year’s Edinburgh festival with a comedy musical they wrote in the west end… of Newcastle. Ashley Frieze, stand-up comedian and co-writer of “The Musical!” tells the story. Songwriting I met Chris Parr through the Newcastle University debating society a couple of years ago. After heroically losing a tournament in Durham, we went back to his flat and played guitars long into the night, Chris made songwriting seem pretty easy and gave me the confidence to try it myself.
 | | Chris Parr and Ashley Frieze |
After the summer, we met up, swapped songs we had written since, and then, on the spur of the moment, decided to write a musical. It was as simple as that. We were in a pub and decided to make a musical out of H.G. Wells’ book, “The Time Machine”. As you do. Sadly, “The Time Machine” is not something we can stage yet. While at last year’s Fringe, I suddenly came up with the idea for “The Musical!”. Two guys are in a pub and decide to write a musical (sound familiar?) but they get trapped in their show and have to write their way out… they’re not looking forward to the love scene! Costume Exactly one year to the hour after I emailed Chris, outlining the idea, we will be getting into costume for our 15th performance of a show which pretty accurately matches the description I sent.
 | | Newcastle playwright Chris Parr |
What’s the first rule of writing? Write about what you know. “The Musical!” is virtually autobiographical and has become increasingly true as we have developed it. We play comedy versions of ourselves and end up trapped in my dining room by an ancient Japanese Gypsy Curse, needing to write a series of songs to be released. We wrote the show in my dining room and rehearse there too. We really have spent countless hours singing love songs to each other in there. Cheeky The show is inspired by our efforts writing the first musical, and is also rooted firmly in the world of Musical Theatre. We take a playful dig at the well known shows as our characters work out what they need to do to break the curse. There are a few cheeky references for the real musicals anoraks, but the script is accessible to everyone. We premiered the show to a packed house in Newcastle Arts Centre back in May. I perform with Tynemouth AOS and Durham Musical Theatre Company, so we had musicals aficionados in, as well as Chris’s excited student friends. It was a great night and everyone really enjoyed themselves. Instruments We have since performed in Manchester, and have a two night run in London in mid-July. It is a fun show to perform. We play various instruments live on stage as we sing our way out of trouble.
 | | Co-author Ashley Frieze |
Back in February, I was in New York and I walked the length of Broadway with the script in my hand. I rang my brother and told him my show was “on Broadway”. Then I hit the script against a lamppost and declared it “a Broadway smash”. I am ashamed to admit that that really happened. Perhaps it will bring us good luck. The Fringe is a very competitive environment. We will have to work hard to get an audience. I hope people will come – it promises to be a good hour’s entertainment. | 
