Hello Stage to Page Squad! Lovely to chat with you again! Hiya everyone, I am Katie Pritchard, and I am a professional silly billy. My acting career began at aged 6 months when I was cast as the Baby Jesus in a production of a show about Jesus. My parents both perform in amateur dramatics, so they were more than happy to say yes when a local group asked if I could play the famous baby. However, when my parents turned up to watch the show and see me do my finest baby acting (rumours say I was incredibly realistic in the role), they watched the person playing Mary carrying me up some scaffolding with zero safety equipment and my Mum nearly fainted. So, yes, I started acting at 6 months old, and I’ve always done my own stunts. 

Yes, it is very exciting to not only have been involved with these productions from the beginning and to be in the original casts for them, but also to return for another fun adventure! In “Scouts! The Musical” I will be playing the character of Rosie – she’s just your average 5-foot-tall Scout going around doing Scout things, but then she gets hypnotised by someone whose intentions may not be entirely good and is able to tie knots at the speed of light! (Spoilers, sorry!) I am very excited to go back to knot tying school and learn how to tie a few more ropes in record time. As an actor, let me tell you, there is nothing more scary onstage than having to tie knots at super speed when there are actual Scouts and professional knot tie-ers in the audience! TERRIFYING!! “Scouts! The Musical” is a tale of adventure, friendship and beautiful teamwork. It’s a fun and uplifting story that’ll leave you wanting to go out into the wild and do cool scout things! 

And then in “A Jaffa Cake Musical” I will be playing almost the opposite character – The (evil) Tax Man! BOOO!!! Along with some other fun characters. The Tax Man was super fun to play last year, and I cannot wait to reprise the role again! He’s sort of like this evil mythical supervillain who wears a bowler hat and loves to click when he dances? I think that’s my best description of him. Of the other fun characters I’ll be playing I also absolutely adore being The Robber – he has no lines, and he’s just in one song, but I got giddy with excitement every show last year before I went on for that character because I loved it so much, so I can’t wait to get back into my stripey jumper and mask and go and steal some Jaffa Cakes again! (Another spoiler – sorry!) “A Jaffa Cake Musical” is based on the 1991 court case of McVitites vs HMRC to determine if a Jaffa Cake is a cake or a biscuit so they could decide how much VAT they needed to pay. It’s an incredible story! 

Oh, it was so lovely during our first outings to see the crowd reactions. I think that’s why I found the knot tying in “Scouts! The Musical” particularly scary because I wanted to get it right for the Scouts who were in the crowd. The audience for Scouts were comprised of an even split of actual Scouts (previous and current) and new Musical Theatre lovers. It was such a lovely atmosphere to perform a show in! As well as the epic audiences, Scouts features an actor/muso cast, which means that everyone in the cast plays instruments as well as doing all the acting, so it was a real ensemble piece. In the original cast we could all play multiple instruments, so some of my favourite moments during the show were when we all swapped instruments mid-song. It just felt like such a beautiful way to do a show that is all about teamwork and having each other’s backs. So, I can’t wait to do that again! And I’ve also been so looking forward to my Kazoo and Recorder solo again – and I’ve been trying to see if I can bring any more silly instruments into the show. 

“A Jaffa Cake Musical” was just such a wonderful show to do at Edinburgh Fringe last year, we all had the best time – one of our cast members asked “Is this what Fringe is always like?”! It was like being inside a really cool movie! It was just such a dream combination of amazing cast, hilarious script, lovely venue and venue team, and then we had the great fortune of also being well received by the audiences and press and having sold out houses every day. It really was just a dream come true! So, I cannot wait to be back again this year, and this time we have a slightly longer running time and a few extra cast members joining us, so I am excited to see what fun that will bring to the show! 

I cannot WAIT to be back for my big double trouble fun times! Last year I was a bit too ill before the fringe to be able to make my “I Kiss The Music” show exactly how I wanted it to be in time for the fringe last year, so I did a WIP short run of it at The Stand which was lovely and awesome. And then this year, I wanted to actually make the show I had in my head last year but couldn’t quite achieve, so I am super excited to bring the show all proper and full out Fiona to Assembly at Assembly RoxyBoxy! So, on top of getting to work with the lovely folk at Assembly, it also means that my show venues this year are super close together which will be great for my tiny little leggies! 

I LOVE the silly show I’ve made in “I Kiss The Music” – it’s a pop star arena tour…to a shipping container next to the Portaloo’s! It’s got songs, it’s got a handmade unitard, it’s got dance moves you never thought the human body capable of, and it’s got a world record attempt! Basically, think Lady Gaga…on acid! And I can’t WAIT to perform it all month at the fringe! 

My best fringe advice if you’re taking your own show up to Edinburgh Fringe is this: before you go to fringe, write down what you hope to achieve at the fringe. Write it down somewhere you will be able to access and read it whilst at the fringe. This has become the most important part of my pre-fringe process. That way, you can focus your mind when you’re writing your show / in the lead up to the fringe and aiming your efforts at things that you would like to achieve. And it also means that while you’re at fringe and you’re feeling overwhelmed by everyone around you being amazing and winning everything, you can look at your list and see that you probably are also having a pretty flipping awesome fringe too! It’s my best tip for staying sane during fringe so you can have a super fun time! 

Well, what can I say really other than: you won’t see any other shows like these! Scouts will fill you up with joy and warm fuzzy feelings with its lovely story of friendship and teamwork. And A Jaffa Cake Musical will leave you feeling like “I wish it was the 90’s again – things were so bonkers back then!”. What more could you possibly want from your Musical Theatre outings?? Eh? EH?!! Nothing! Also, we would love to see you there and we would be really kind to you too and then maybe we could all be friends? xoxo

You can book tickets to Scouts the Musical, here and A Jaffa Cake Musical, here.