UK Theatre Network

The Heather Brothers

This week sees the premiere of teen horror musical parody, Camp Horror at the Queen's theatre, Hornchurch and I am looking forward to being among the audience.  As a taster of what's to come, here is an interview with the writers, Neil, John and Lea Heather. This interview was held during rehearsals.

What factors do you consider when deciding whether a play will be a musical? Could you explain the creative process involved in composing a musical?

We generally try and come up with a good story first. We sit around bouncing ideas off each other. We chat about books, films or politics and drink a lot of tea!
If we feel the idea would work better with songs, then we try and create a musical. Dialogue also comes second to plot. Because we started out in life as songwriters, we also spend a lot of time on lyrics. We write the first line of a song, then sit down with our thesaurus and rhyming dictionary to find something to rhyme with it. 

Camp Horror is a comical parody of the teen horror movie.  Do you think that musical theatre lends itself more to humorous productions? Does singing and dancing take some of the seriousness away from a play or does it enhance it?

Camp Horror is kind of different - the problem we set ourselves was how we maintain the believability once the killing started... we feel we cracked it.
The show is packed with 14 original rocking songs which are all really catchy. The music is all deliberately upbeat, which we found to be a great comic way to offset the horror elements. How fun is it to have happy tunes set to someone being slaughtered!
Camp Horror is a light-hearted comedy, so the songs, music, singing and dancing very much enhance the humour and the story.  

Does the humour come naturally once you begin writing?

Yes... we love writing funny lyrics. Our philosophy is if it makes us laugh, then hopefully it can make others chuckle too.  

How was your idea for Camp Horror first formed? 

We have always loved horror films and couldn’t get enough of flicks like Psycho and Homicidal Maniac. We were in Massachusetts about five years ago working on a couple of horror movies we’d written and thought it’d be a great idea to put a horror film on stage... then we thought it would be better to make it a musical... and better still a comedy musical.
There is an overkill of horror movies at the moment. We thought it would be refreshing to take this further and create something with lots of laughs, songs, twists and turns, featuring a group of young people.
It has been a long, long process – there were many rewrites and we spent a lot of time on lyrics - so we are thrilled it is now finally ready for audiences to enjoy.
 
Do you have an audience in mind when you begin writing?

We always write shows we would like to see and we enjoy witty, character-based situation comedy.
Camp Horror has something for all ages. Our fresh-faced cast of teen pin-ups play a host of familiar characters who young people will know and love from TV and film – the cocky guy, the cute cheerleader, the geek, the kooky girl, the joker, the hippy chick… and of course, the poor old tired school teacher!
Mums, Dads, Nans and Granddads will also recognise these characters because they went to horror movies as teenagers too; it’s just the clothes that are different! It doesn’t matter what year it is, the formula of the horror movie hasn’t really changed for generations. If it still entertains, it still works! So even if your teenage years are a distant memory, you can relive the fun and frights of your youth whilst enjoying a great rock ‘n’ roll soundtrack!

To what extent do you like to be involved in a production? Do you prefer to have more input or let the director and cast put their own stamp on your plays?

We like to be around during the first production. Things sometimes need to be changed, lines cut, etc.  So we like to be on hand for all that.

Do you attend rehearsals? How do you feel about the development of Camp Horror at the Queen’s in Hornchurch? Will you be in the audience during the run?

Yes, we will certainly be watching the production and we have been attending rehearsals at the Queen’s every day. We are thrilled to report that Camp Horror, under the direction of Bob Carlton, is turning out brilliantly! It is a hugely entertaining and fun night out, which will take people out of their lives for a few hours.

This cut to the chase… production brings you a large young cast of super-talented         actor-musicians with enormous amounts of energy. They are not only fantastic actors, singers and dancers, but amazingly, also provide a live soundtrack to the show by playing their own musical instruments on stage.
We also have a truly incredible set – the Queen’s stage has been completely transformed into the darkest, creepiest theatre you’ve ever seen and it also brings audiences much, much closer to the action than ever before – everyone will just have to come and see it!

Camp Horror is very different to what people are used to - as far as we know, there isn’t a musical comedy in theatre quite like this one.