A Super Happy Story (About Feeling Super Sad)

Jon Brittain, Matthew Floyd Jones

• Publisher: Methuen Drama
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781350058644
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Médias et arts de la scène
• Subtopic: Dramaturgie théâtre

A fun, silly and sad show for anyone whose brain isn't always on their side. Sally's a happy person. She doesn't let little things get her down and almost never cries. But she's got an illness. It makes her feel like she isn't the person she wants to be....But she doesn't want anyone to know about it. Written by Olivier Award-winner Jon Brittain with original music by Matthew Floyd Jones this new musical comedy mixes storytelling, live music and sketch comedy.

Chapter One

THE BEST NIGHT OF SALLY’S LIFE

Music plays. Sally speaks.

SallyI’m sixteen years old. Right now. Not a few minutes ago and not in a few minutes time. It’s ten past eleven on September the first and I am exactly sixteen years old. Unless you look at my ID. If you look at my ID I am nineteen and I have been for three months. If you look at my ID I have the wrong colour hair and a face that looks not quite but almost entirely different to the one I actually own. If you look at my ID I’m not called Sally Mackenzie, I’m called Elizabeth Shipp, I live in Glasgow and apparently I’m Canadian, but, if you look at my ID and don’t notice any of that, then you, like the bouncers, wouldn’t know that I’m not actually allowed to be here.

We’re at the student union. There’s a band onstage, my favourite band – and no, I’m not going to tell you who they are, I was sixteen and it’s really embarrassing! They’re playing my favourite song and my best friend Grace has just grabbed my hand and said –

Grace appears.

Grace I’ve met a guy who says he can get us backstage.

Sally We push through the crowd and yes, there is a guy, a guy who looks like someone whose offer to take a girl backstage has backfired massively when she’s brought a friend with her.

The Guy appears.

Guy Hey, I didn’t mean I could get two of you in –

And he’s gone again.

Sally But it doesn’t matter. ’Cause now we’re at the side of the stage, we’re drinking beer out the bottle, and we are this far away from the band. They’re like, right there. And I’m singing along and dancing when the singer, he turns, he turns and sees me, and then he smiles, he turns and sees me and smiles and my heart leaps. And then he gestures for us to come over. And we’re like ‘Oh my God!’ And Grace is like –

Grace Can we even do that?

Sally And I’m like, ‘Why not?’ And she’s like –

Grace Really?

Sally And I’m like ‘yeah!’

And then we’re onstage. And we’re dancing. And in front of us, there are hundreds of faces. Some of them have seen us, some of them haven’t. Grace is next to me, kind of uncertain but kind of enjoying it. And then there’s me. And I am going for it. I am properly going for it. I’m like Flashdance, Footloose and Billy Elliot all rolled into one. And then the singer, he comes over, he comes over and he starts dancing with me, he starts dancing with me! And then the song ends and the security guards are glaring at us from the side of the stage, so we jump down into the crowd and push through all the people and then I’m in front of Darren Thomas, this guy in the year above who I’ve liked since like . . . ever! And he’s like –

Darren sidles over, smoothly.

Darren That was so cool.

Sally And I’m like ‘Do you really think so? Yeah, I guess it was, wasn’t it?’ and then he smiles, and I smile, and it’s like that moment, that moment when you know you’re going to kiss someone but you don’t know who’s gonna make the first move and then he leans in and I lean in and then –

Grace Get a room!

Sally Grace interrupts. And then she laughs, ’cause she knows what this is, she knows what this moment means to me, this is the moment I’ve been waiting for, for like all my life, and then Grace holds up her camera and she’s like –

Grace Smile!

Sally And we all look into it and . . .

A camera flash goes off.

Beat.

And because that moment is so perfect. Because everything’s going so well. Because I know that normally I would be feeling good in this situation . . . I know something’s not quite right here.

’Cause even though I’m smiling in the picture, inside . . .

Everything is going wrong.

Everything is still for a moment.

Until . . .

Music for the second song, ‘There’s No Reason’, begins. It’s light and a bit cheeky.

So yeah, I did say things might get bit heavy, but don’t worry, ’cause now it’s time for another song.

Sally starts to sing.

The problem with depression

Is it’s very hard to explain

Why suddenly all these horrible things

Are going on in your brain

Your job is pretty decent

Your health and love life too

So why is this happening to you?

Is it an allergy to dairy

That has robbed you of your zeal?

Did you piss off loads of witches?

Are Dementors really real?

No! There’s an explanation

It’s...