Setting the Scene: a 1950s a-Fayre

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Just outside a small, rural town, somewhere in 1950s England, it is Midsummer and the annual Fayre has just arrived back in town. In the gathering darkness, twinkling lights lead the way through the trees to the edge of the Fayre. Faintly, the sound of an old carousel can be heard. The air carries the smell of burnt sugar, candyfloss and sweet toffee-apples. In the distance, a Ferris wheel can be seen through the branches, and a group of beautiful girls rushes past…

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However, the Fayre is no ordinary place; it is a world just tipping to the point of surreality. The Fayre is eerily quiet, apart from the band, the 35th Dragoon Guards, set to play a one-night-only gig there, and devoid of officials, apart from Patience who runs the Fayre’s milk-stall. There is one other figure; an elusive Ringmaster who seems simultaneously to be orchestrating the events of the night, while going curiously unnoticed by the characters around him…

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The Backstory: high-school heartbreak

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Flashback to a year ago. The ‘lovesick maidens’, the most popular group of girls in school, were all dating a motley crew of boys from their class. The whole lot of them came to the Fayre when it was in town, and it was on this night that the boys decided to tell their adoring beaus that they were dropping out of school a year early to form a band, the 35th Dragoon Guards, and head off on a world tour. There were tearful goodbyes. There were broken hearts.

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Now, a year later, the Fayre is back in town, and so are the boys. Fresh, from their sell-out, smash-hit tour, and now world-famous musicians, the 35th Dragoon Guards have returned for a one-night-only gig in their home-town, expecting to be welcomed with delight by their one-time lovers. However, the girls, who have just graduated from school, have other ideas. Their eyes and hearts have fixed themselves on their aesthetic classmate, Reginald Bunthorne, and his compliance with the current vogue for the American Rockabilly.

With all the girls and their ex-lovers converging on the Fayre tonight, chaos feels excitingly imminent…