Toy Day

Content details

(Scroll down for song samples, characters and plot summary)

It’s the last day of the school year – Toy Day. As four children decide which toy to take in, each one they consider brings back amusing yet fond memories of their time at primary school. Discover what secretly happens to confiscated football stickers, how the long-jump should not be taught, the dangers involved in playing conkers, the perils of SATs, what children really enjoy in a movie, and how it feels to get ready to go to ‘big’ school.

Songs include

Born To Make A Mess The Latest Craze PE Nightmare Yucky Stuff The SATs Blues Ride Our Bikes  Letting Go

To move between songs use on the player above

Sample piano score

Download a sample piano score (JPG)

Characters

Tom, Laura, Charlie and Emma - Winners of 'The World's Messiest Bedroom' award. (Names should be changed to those of the actors playing these characters.)
Mum - Adults should be heard and not seen - which she is.
6 sticker- collecting children - They'll fight tooth and nail to get their hands on an elusive 'Rooney'.
2 teachers and the Head - "Act your age, not your shoe size!" has never seemed a more appropriate phrase.
2 long jump teachers - From one extreme to another.
A large group of long suffering long jumpers - Put through their paces in the pit.
6 young 'film-lovers' - The bigger the body-count, the better.
Teacher up a stepladder - Those staples won't remove themselves.
7 Shakespearean characters - Bloodthirsty thesps.
3 SATs sufferers - Totally traumatised by their tests.
4 playground parents - Their little darlings' health and safety is all that matters.
4 children - Winning the conkers tournament is all that matters .
Head - Not being lynched is all that matters.
Your LSAs  - Let them show you what they're really made of.

Plot summary

Hooray! It's the last day of another year at school - traditionally known as 'Toy Day'. Adults strip walls, hand back pieces of artwork, hunt for lost textbooks, and try to identify the owners of solitary plimsolls and tatty items of PE kit. Meanwhile the children generously share games and toys in quiet and contented groups around the room - mmm! For Tom, Laura, Charlie and Emma the prospect of starting secondary school and leaving all this behind for good is a little daunting - nearly as daunting as the prospect of Tom having to tidy his pigsty of a room! As the four children sit on Tom's bed, trying to choose suitable toys and games to take in for the last day of term, each item they consider is a poignant reminder of what makes this time in their lives, a time that has too quickly come to an end, so special.

In this latest instalment of songs and sketches we explore yet more weird and wonderful school situations, guaranteed to strike a chord with any audience of parents, teachers and children. Are youngsters just not cut out to be clean and tidy? How can different teachers have such opposed methods of teaching the long jump? What happens to confiscated football stickers? Do adults really understand the tortures of SATs? In the age of the playstation and the X-box can a gentle game of conkers ever be exciting? Can LSAs rise to a makeover challenge? What would children choose if they were allowed to watch any DVD they wanted? And of course, what feelings are stirred up as we prepare to face the perils of 'Big School'?

With 'Toy Day' Andrew Oxspring adds to his ever expanding catalogue of school memoirs, in another emotionally charged, affectionate and, as ever, tongue-in-cheek musical production. It is nothing more, or less, than a celebration of 'going to school', both as an adult and a child, with the emphasis very much on having fun. Be prepared to laugh and to be laughed at…….and keep a box of tissues handy!