An axeman chopping off heads doesn’t sound like wholesome family fun.
But the creators of the popular touring stage show Barmy Britain Part Two, which is coming to Dubai's Madinat Theatre this weekend, say it is exactly the kind of thing that kids love.
Neal Foster of The Birmingham Stage Company, the co-writer and director of the Horrible Histories' Barmy Britain shows – part one was staged in Dubai in 2012 – says the blood and gore is crucial to telling the stories of famous historical figures.
Horrible Histories was created two decades ago by Teary Deary, an English author who liberally peppered true-life tales with gruesome facts to get young minds interested in world history. The books proved to be a huge hit, spawning audio, TV and stage versions.
Foster’s two-hour UAE production will feature two actors – himself and Anthony Spargo – galloping through laugh-out-loud scenes while negotiating several costume changes and interacting with the audience.
Foster says he will be playing all of the female characters, including Queen Elizabeth I, the Queen of the British Iceni tribe Boadicea, and Queen Victoria.
"It's only ever been played by a woman before," says Foster, who has been producing stage versions of Horrible Histories for nine years, co-writing them with Deary.
“It’s a lot of fun dressing up, though getting a dress on in the four-second window between acts is challenging. For example, Elizabeth’s dress is quite complicated – the skirt, bodice, that enormous ruff and the wig have to go on very quickly.”
Other characters the audience will learn about include the notorious highwayman Dick Turpin and the Scottish murderers Burke and Hare. This raises the question of whether the subject matter ever gets too dark and gruesome for the children to handle.
"The whole secret of Horrible Histories is to be rude, disgusting and as naughty as possible without actually sending the audience into a frenzy of terror," says Foster. "It's about keeping them on the edge of their seats and that's why it works so well."
He believes children are usually fed tame, boring stories that don’t really do much to pique their interest in history.
“I think we mollycoddle our children quite a bit, but they are often looking for a bit of danger and a bit of fun,” he says. “The books are perfect for the stage because Terry has picked some of the most interesting stories from history to write about.
“We create short scenes where you can learn an awful lot about something in a short space of time because of the way we do it. It involves songs and jokes, which always make a good theatrical package.”
One of the scenes the writers decided to include is an execution that didn’t quite go to plan during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, which Foster found out about during his year-long research for the production.
“The axeman had a go at it 11 times before he managed to chop off the poor person’s head,” he says. “They weren’t professional executioners, just ordinary men trying to earn a living, and they weren’t always good at it. When you hear such stories, you instantly know they’ll work on stage.”
He does, however, keep a close eye on the scares quotient.
“In our 3-D show [not yet staged in the UAE], we’ve had to shorten the time of a scene in which a skull is projected onto the crowd,” he says. “But that’s about the only change we’ve ever made.”
• Horrible Histories Barmy Britain Part Two is at the Madinat Theatre in Dubai from tomorrow until Saturday. Tickets, Dh120, and available from www.madinattheatre.com. A special show for schools will be staged at the Paris Sorbonne in Abu Dhabi on Monday
aahmed@thenational.ae