Bibi is determined to win the Seaside Ukulele Festival song contest and finally become a successful musician. She’s up against fellow contestants Ben and Cosmic Echo, as well as other obstacles like second-hand camping gear, a love triangle, and her own self-doubt. Not to mention the crushing disappointment of meeting her musical hero while covered in mud.
Ukulele Days is a joyful actor-muso romantic comedy, with a ukulele score spanning genres from folk and comedy songs, to blues, jazz, and electro-pop.
DEVELOPMENT HISTORY
May 2024: development residency at Watford Palace Theatre. With dramaturg Tricity Vogue and actor-musos Katie Arnstein and Jason Kajdi, we made some big discoveries about the story, killed some darlings, and added a villian!
November 2023: Musical Bites, a lunchtime series of new musical readings. Presented by Mercury Musical Developments & The Other Palace.
May 2023: BEAM Showcase at Oxford Playhouse. The UK’s biggest showcase of new musical theatre, curated by Mercury Musical Developments & Musical Theatre Network.
February 2023: Into the Works scratch night at VAULT Festival, curated and produced by Music Box Theatre.
“Ukulele Days is a sheer joy. Amy Clare Tasker has written a little gem, which will encourage everyone to pick up a ukulele and have a go.”
– Caroline Flutsch for Quaere Living, BEAM 2023: Top New Musicals in Development
THANK YOU!
We’ve raised over £2800 with our crowdfunding campaign, to support the development of the show, working towards a showing in November 2023 and a further development in spring 2024.
With support from: Alice & Jon Steinberg, Amanda Thomas, Andrew & Jo Cripps, Anne & Ian Cripps, Annette Corbett, Chris Newman, David Megarrity, Davinia Hamilton, Debra Salem, Dominic Varney, Emily Louizou, Emily Rose Simons, Emma Wolfin Golding, Ernaldo Data, Grace O’Keefe, Greig Rapley, Gretchen Brosius, Helen & Chris Jones, Ian Fleming, Ilayda Arden, Jack Dryden, James Sherwood, Jeanne de Rougemont, Jo Millar, Jo Stephenson, Justine Abri-Hodder, Kandy Rohmann, Karina Garnett, Kate Tasker, Kirsty Greenwood, Lizzie Vogler, Maria Marquis, Maura Halloran, Michael Clulow, Mick Tasker, Monica Krogstad, Namrata Trivedi, Neil & Val Tasker, Neil Abrahams, Neil Bastian, Paige Rogers, Paul & Linda Wray, Sarita Lewis, Sharlit Deyzac, Shauna Carrick, Steve & Di Tindell, Sue & John Wilks, Tom Arnold, Tom McGrath.
“It has all the charm and whimsy that you might expect… It has this buoyant joyful sound that you get with the ukulele.”
– Mickey Jo Theatre, BEAM 2023 video review
CREATIVE TEAM
Writer Amy Clare Tasker is a theatre maker and songwriter. She taught herself to play the ukulele in 2019, and discovered a wonderland of music-lovers, community events, festivals, and creative expression. Amy is a co-director of Pinecone Performance Lab, where she writes, performs, directs, and embraces an all-around “theatre maker” ethos. Amy wrote and performed the play with songs HOT (Helen of Troy), which premiered at The Cockpit in February 2020. Her musical The Queen is Mad, co-written with Tom James McGrath, won a special commendation award from Musical Theatre Review at Edinburgh Fringe 2025.
Amy is a member of the Book, Music & Lyrics workshop, Mercury Musical Developments, and Musical Theatre Network.
Dramaturg Tricity Vogue, AKA Heather Tyrrell, is a seasoned scriptwriter and lyricist, as well as a celebrated ukulele player and cabaret performer. Her most recent theatrical collaboration was as lyricist on Alma, a new original musical produced by Théatre de Namur, Belgium, created by director Fabrice Murgia and celebrated drag queen Peggy Lee Cooper.
Tricity spent a decade working in television (credits include My Family, Totally Frank, Holby City, Byker Grove and the Teletubbies) before she fell down a rabbit hole into London’s cabaret scene. As an international cabaret performer and musician, Tricity Vogue has staged five hit Edinburgh Fringe shows, and played venues including London’s Royal Festival Hall, Royal Albert Hall and Wiltons Music Hall with her All Girl Swing Band. Her “drag action musical” Heels of Glory, co-written with composer Richard Link, was awarded development funding from the Arts Council of England, and headlined the Pride in London Festival 2016 at Chelsea Theatre.
Pinecone Performance Lab 