A school play that’s out of this world

Two words can strike terror into the heart of any parent – School play.

If you’re lucky, it’ll be a tolerable affair, with some half-decent acting and not too many fumbled lines, set disasters, or one of the actors falling down and/or throwing up.

At their worst, they can feel like they’re going on for days, and you start to wonder if the drama teacher is deliberately trying to get themselves fired.

The choice of play often doesn’t help. An earnest Shakespearian outing, Guys and Dolls with awkward faux-American accents, or an ill-advised performance of Grease, anyone? Thought not.

A school in the US has upped the stakes somewhat, by performing an adaptation of scary 1979 sci-fi blockbuster, Alien. Yes, it had the chest-bursting junior alien scene, too.

Originally starring Sigourney Weaver as tough-as-nails spaceship Nostromo warrant officer Ellen Ripley, the film did a fine job of scaring the hell out of cinema-goers. In the following four decades, the alien-slowly-wipes-out-crew film franchise has continued it’s trail of spilt cola and popcorn involuntarily sent sky-wards with numerous sequels and spin-offs.

So good were the performances, costumes and set delivered by the kids from New Jersey’s North Bergen High School, that scenes filmed by family members in the audience have gone viral on social media.

The mayor of North Bergen has even offered to fund more performances of the play, whilst actor Elijah Wood was amongst those expressing their shock at just how good it is.

But the ultimate accolade came from the official Alien twitter account, which posted “We are impressed!”

The school’s English teacher adapted the script for their drama club, and the students made the space suits, airlock doors, alien costumes and other elements that brought the creepy world of the film to life on stage. There was even a video trailer for Alien: The Play.

The film’s original advertising had the brilliant line “In space no one can hear you scream”. Judging by the wobbly clips of footage from the performances, there were definitely some audibly raised voices – of the audience whooping their appreciation at key moments.

Whilst we’re wondering who’s voting on what to do with Brexit, kids in America are staging awesome versions of classic sci-fi movies.

At least it’s comforting to know that, whichever side of The Pond you’re on, people witnessing either will definitely be having nightmares and waking up screaming.

This post first appeared as my 'A wry look at the week' column, in The Mail, on Friday the 29th of March 2019. The version used on the paper's website was slightly re-titled as "School play was out of this world".

You can see the school's trailer on YouTube here

I had a tough time deciding on what to write this week, and that seems to be a regular thing now - finding inspiration seems to be hard work these days. I'm on holiday next week, so maybe a break will help. If not, I might have to ponder how much longer I carry on with the column. It is almost seven years now, after all!

(Tape time: No 131 - 90 minutes of 7" B-sides from 1985!)

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