THE SECOND show performed by Petersfield Youth Theatre this month is a perennial favourite, Bugsy Malone.

The musical started out as a movie, and was English director Alan Parker’s first feature film. It received eight British Academy Award nominations and won five of them.

When his children told him that going to the pictures was not as special as it had been when he was young, he had the idea of writing a gangster musical with no adults in the cast.

Featuring a cast of young people, including Scott Baio and Jodie Foster, playing Prohibition-era mobsters in a tongue-in-cheek tribute to Twenties’ gangster flicks, the first draft was ready in 1975.

Parker then adapted the show for the stage, and this version of Bugsy Malone has long been popular with amateur companies all over the United States and UK.

The first London stage production was in 1998 at the Queen’s Theatre in London with the National Youth Music Theatre’s all-singing, all-dancing cast aged 16 years and under.

This of course, is how Alan Parker had originally intended Bugsy to be cast, and why it has remained such a popular show for producers and audiences alike.

The story is set in 1920s Chicago at a time when the sale of all beers, wine and liquor were officially banned, as being dangerous to health and wellbeing.

An immediate effect was to drive the consumption of alcohol ‘underground’ and the emergence of speakeasies where black market alcohol was served.

A speakeasy was often a building that on the outside looked innocuous enough –?such as the bookstore in the show – but inside was an illegal drinking club.

Audience members can join the cast at Fat Sam’s Speakeasy on stage at the Festival Hall, Petersfield, and enjoy a spectacle of song, dance and, you never know, you may even get caught in the crossfire from a shootout with splurge guns.

Songs from the show include Fat Sam’s Grand Slam, Tomorrow, Bad Guys, I’m Feeling Fine, My Name Is Tallulah, So You Wanna Be a Boxer? and You Give a Little Love. Music in the show is by Paul Williams.

The show is also a gentle love story between Bugsy, a boxing promoter and ladies man with no money, and Blousey, the country girl wannabe actress.

There is Tallulah the sultry chanteuse vying for Bugsy’s attention, Lena the stuck-up star showgirl, Leroy the boxer, and a big cast of gangsters and molls, dancers and down and outs.

Bugsy Malone will be performed Tuesday, September 22, at 7pm, Wednesday, September 23, at 7pm, Thursday, September 24, at 7pm, Friday, September 25, at 7.30pm, Saturday, September 26, at 2.30pm and 7.30pm, and Sunday, September 27, at 11am and 3pm.

Tickets are available from the box office at One Tree Books, Lavant Street, Petersfield, call 01730 261199.

They can also be booked online at: www.ticketsource.co.uk

Anyone interested in joining PYT, can contact organisers at The Space in Heath Road on 01730 266730 or see the website: www.pyt.org.uk to find out more.