I don’t think I’ve ever felt so excited or emotional about an imminent publication as I feel about this one. Why? Because my forthcoming Carcanet collection, Work Experience, is a real first for me: the first time I have ever been published as a playwright — specifically, as a writer of murder mystery musical librettos. I initially wrote both of these plays to be performed at my children’s secondary school, and, from the start, I loved both in a desperate, passionate way that slightly defies explanation. Which isn’t to say I don’t think they’re amazing, because I do — but they feel actually magical to me, as if they came from heaven and have been supernaturally and miraculously blessed. I know, for instance, that if ever a genie popped out of a lamp and told me that any one part of my oeuvre could become as famous as Hamlet (or perhaps I should say, as Hamilton), and I could pick which one, I would choose these two musicals without a doubt. My current Impossible Dream Goal, in fact, is for them to one day have never-ending runs at the West End and on Broadway. (Cameron Mackintosh, if you’re reading this, please contact me immediately with a view to making this happen.)
Both musicals are set in the same fictional world, and both feature, in the starring role of detective, the disaffected, rebellious and unusually clever teenager Oscar Landrigan, who is totally based on my son as he was as a teenager. An absolutely dreadful fictional school forms part of the setting for both plays too: Pffisham School, Cambridge’s most expensive and also most terrible educational establishment, in which the teachers persecute the children more often and with more gusto than they ever teach them anything useful. This appalling institution might or might not be based on a real school that I might or might not have come into contact with in the past.
Both musicals contain baffling, challenging puzzle-mysteries, comedy, and lots of catchy songs, and both were directly inspired by the work of my literary hero, Agatha Christie. The Mystery of Mr. E is now a feature film available on Amazon Prime and Apple TV, and I could not adore the movie more. At the same time, the script had to be changed substantially in order to make it the best possible version for the screen. Some songs had to be cut altogether and others abbreviated in order to get a run-time of ninety minutes, and while I was very happy for all of this to happen, it made me determined to preserve and publish the best version of the stage play too, with all songs and lyrics intact.
It makes so much sense to me to be publishing these two librettos, containing lots of song lyrics that share so many qualities with my poetry, alongside all the poems I have written since my last poetry book was published.
Let me try and tempt you to enter the world of poetry via musical murder mystery with an example. This song, the sort-of-title song from Work Experience, is sung by Pffisham School teachers to Oscar Landrigan when they’re trying to force him to go and do a week’s boring work experience at a local business. The woman in charge of work experience placements, Lynda Terry, doesn’t know how to pronounce the word ‘experience’ and so calls it ‘work experi-ness’, thereby facilitating many a rhyme:
Work Experi-ness
Cartoonists, satirical,
Scientists, empirical –
All, by some miracle,
Work all day long.
Farmers, quite tractor-y,
Film stars, well actor-y,
Blokes in a factory,
Join in our song:
-
Work experi-ness, Work experi-ness,
Monday to Friday, a whole week of weariness.
You’ll learn why grown-ups aren’t all full of cheeriness,
Why some turn bitter, why some go berserk.
Work experi-ness, Work experi-ness,
Eight hours a day of unparalleled dreariness.
You’ll take up gambling and vodka and beer-iness
When you experi-ness work.
-
Outgoing oncologists,
Shy sociologists,
Clerks, ornithologists –
All do their chores,
Not always joyfully
But thinking employfully.
That’s why, good-boyfully,
You must do yours.
-
Work experi-ness, work experi-ness,
Teachers delighted when pupils not here-iness.
Give us a treat of a week’s disappear-iness.
Try to come back as not quite such a jerk.
Work experi-ness, work experi-ness,
Round-robin, open-plan bad breath and leeriness.
At worst oppression, at best insincere-iness.
Go and experi-ness work.
-
Engineers, metallurgical,
Chaplains, liturgical,
Ward sisters, surgical –
All know the score:
Work too hard, work a lot,
Work till your brain gets hot,
Do all the work you’ve got
Then find some more.
-
Work experi-ness, work experi-ness,
Rules that demand your fake-jolly adhere-iness,
No great vocation, no brilliant career-iness,
And you’ll turn bitter, and you’ll go berserk.
Work experi-ness, work experi-ness,
No Oscar Landrigan anywhere near-iness.
Think life’s a joke? Well, you’ll soon see it’s seri-ness.
When you experi-ness work.
Go and experi-ness work!
******
If you want to find out what happens when Oscar Landrigan arrives at his work experience gig and discovers that the managing director of the establishment has been accused of abducting and murdering his son, you can preorder the book here. It’s also a very good idea to buy and read both murder mystery musicals now, so that when they appear at the West End and on Broadway, you’ll be able to compare the stage extravaganzas with the written versions. You know it makes sense.
This week's article is by Sophie Hannah, author of Work Experience, which is published this month! Get 15% off Work Experience with code MAYBOOKS15.
Sophie Hannah is on tour this summer! Find information and tickets here.
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