Sparkleshark
Year 7 Summer Script Performance
Name ________________________
Class ______
Sparkleshark
Based on the story by Philip Ridley
‘Sparkleshark is an ensemble script; all actors play a range of roles throughout the whole piece.
CHARACTER
The ‘Narrator’ role telling the story is known as ‘ACTOR’; any person can say these lines.
There are a range of ‘characters’
[Jake, Polly, Natasha, Russell, Carol, Speed, Buzz ]
PROPS & COSTUME
These characters are shown to the audience using significant props and costume.
These are passed between ACTORS.
SCENERY
ACTORS will create shapes, locations and objects using their bodies as STILL IMAGES and HUMAN
SCULPTURES.
Lots of ‘random’ props on stage to create the rooftop setting which are then used to create the
different images throughout the story.
SOUND
Drumming and live Music will be used for Sound Effects (SFX).
ACTORS on stage will create SFX. They will be visible to the audience.
ACTORS can use the various props to make other soundscapes.
OPENING: TEACHER DIRECTED
ACTORS using Human Sculpture and props to make the London Skyline. JAKE miming interacting in
space.
VOICE: Choral speaking effects.
ACTORS:
London skyline. Rooftops as far as the eye can see. TV aerials and satellite dishes stand
crooked interrupting the horizon. Large wet puddles gather on the even levels.
Discarded but once-loved furniture; a sofa without the cushions, 3 broken deck chairs, a
rusty garden table. A lopsided wooden bench see-saws in the wind. Broken trolleys and
buckets scattered around. Rubbish paper and plastic bags float around. It’s as though
they are dancing around this quiet place. The sun shining down. No escape. No shade. A
tiny doorway creaks. Jake comes to his secret place. A place for only him. This could be a
dangerous place for any other 14 year old with the broken debris on the floor, but Jake
knows his way. He has his route. Every day after school Jake likes to come to this
rooftop. Every day after school Jake sits in the same armchair. Everyday after school
Jake comes to write. To escape, for a bit, to a place that’s not reality.
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SCENE 1:
STILL IMAGE & MOVEMENT: Jake writes in his notebook. All ACTORS move forward trying to peer on
what he is writing. NOISE makes JAKE look over his shoulder. All ACTORS snap back to positions leaving
POLLY holding one of JAKE’s pieces of writing.
JAKE:
Big.. fish! Bigfish? No.. Glittter? Glitter piranha? No.. No no. Shark. Yes! Shark… glitter..?
POLLY:
Oh, I’m sorry.. Oh look, you’ve lost one of your pages..
JAKE:
Don’t look. It’s personal stuff. You can’t just stroll up here and start reading things willynilly. What are you doing up here anyway? This is my place.
POLLY:
I’ve got three things to say to that… One: what I’m doing up here is none of your
business. Two: the roof is not your private property, unless you have a special clause in
your rent book, which I doubt. And three: I find it strange that someone who can write
such magical words has such a spiteful tongue in his head… Now. I’ve got something I
need to do, then I’ll be gone.
MOVEMENT: POLLY goes to satellite dish and tries to ‘fix’ it. ACTORS physical repeated movement and
soundscape.
ACTOR:
No-one had read Jake’s writing before. He didn’t like to share it. What if people didn’t
like it? It’s personal.
ACTOR:
Jake wasn’t exactly popular. He was in fact the opposite. No-one even wanted to read
his writing because there wasn’t anyone around.
ACTOR:
But she did. Why did she think it was magical? He wondered. How much of his writing
has she read?
JAKE:
Is it really magical? My writing?
POLLY:
Bits.
JAKE:
Ok… Umm… I’m Jake, by the way.
POLLY:
Yeah I know. I go to your school. Not that you would have seen me, you don’t seem to
see anyone, or be seen by anyone for that matter.
JAKE:
I like to be by myself.
POLLY:
By the bins? Surely they’re a bit smelly.
JAKE:
It’s fine if you take a few deep breaths first. I just like to -
POLLY:
Oh no. A dead bird. Poor thing. It’s only a baby. Eew… it’s all twisted and gross. Come
and have a look, Jake.
JAKE:
Nah, nah I’m alright thanks.
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POLLY:
It can’t hurt you.
JAKE:
Yes I know. It’s not the bird…The football pitch.
POLLY:
Err.. there’s no one on the football pitch.
JAKE:
Well you say that now. But there could be, any minute. And they could look up and then
they could see me. And then they… You wouldn’t understand.
POLLY:
Try me…
JAKE:
Just leave it.
POLLY:
Turbo…?
JAKE:
Turbo-what?
POLLY:
Russell. That’s what everyone calls him. Turbo. All the girls love him.
JAKE:
Do they? Well I don’t love your amazing turbo-man. Look what he did to my head, and
my shin and my ear.
POLLY:
Looks very… colourful. I’m sorry you get bullied. I know Russell is a nasty piece of work,
but he does look quite nice.
JAKE:
Ah well – I could do push-ups and sit-ups if I wanted to. But that doesn’t change the
world.
STILL IMAGE & MOVEMENT: JAKE takes POLLY to edge of rooftop and looks over horizon and mimes
telling her a story. ACTORS movement sequence show images [castle, dragon].
ACTOR:
But Polly thought he did change the world. Jake’s writing. It moved her and took her to
this amazing place of his imagined worlds. It got her away from reality.
ACTOR:
How the tall skyline became towering castles and palaces.
How the never-ending rows of houses and shops became the streams and fields.
How the crooked satellite dishes became an overgrown enchanted forest.
ACTOR:
Stories of dragons with teeth like a piranhas but as slender as a shark that glitter like
sequins in the sun above the skyline.
ACTOR:
Polly wished they could stay up on the rooftop all evening and just listen to his stories.
But others were to come and interrupt.
STILL IMAGE: Snap back to Rooftop positions.
Frozen image of school children in a fight.
Characters come out of image to speak to audience.
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NATASHA:
I only came up here looking for Polly, and I found her with him! Geek alert! I need to
teach her that one bad friend choice will kill her school career. But when I got speaking
to Jake, he wasn’t all that bad. I definitely didn’t want him getting hurt.
SPEED:
The kid chose the wrong day. He was asking for it. It’s whatever Russell says… dangle or
story?
CAROL:
Just as I thought… climb all the way up the fire escape and now we are stuck on the
rooftop with Polly and her new geek friend. But he does tell a good story. I really liked
his stories actually.
RUSSELL:
It was just what he deserved. Stories are boring. Jake is boring. Dangle or story?
STILL IMAGE & MOVEMENT: Rooftop. ACTORS frozen fight positions come to life.
POLLY:
But you can’t hurt him. He was just telling us a story. A really good story.
NATASHA:
Yeah… a really good one.
RUSSELL:
I hate stories.
JAKE:
Help! Help!
BUZZ:
What’s it to be then Russ? Dangle or story?
RUSSELL:
Story…. So? Get on with it.
SCENE 2:
STILL IMAGE: Castle with King and Princess.
MOVEMENT: ACTORS come to life to act out story using props and physical movement.
POLLY:
It…. It was about this Princess, wasn’t it Jake? Am I right? Yes? This Princess. What
happened, Jake? Right, yes, she lived in a Castle didn’t she Jake? With her father, yeah?
CAROL:
The King…?
POLLY:
Yes exactly. The Princess... lived with her father… the King…
RUSSELL:
And don’t tell me, she had a mother the queen? Had enough of this… Let’s dangle him.
NATASHA:
No no no… the Queen had been murdered.
CAROL:
Very nasty…
POLLY:
Horribly…
BUZZ:
How?
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STILL IMAGE & MOVEMENT: Mime celebration and battle.
POLLY:
Well, one day, the Castle had been attacked, by the King’s enemies. The Kingdom had
been at war for a long time.
SPEED:
What a rubbish King – he should have been prepared.
CAROL:
Well yes, he usually was a great soldier but he had the baby Princess…
NATASHA:
Yes, and everyone was celebrating. The Castle was full of food and music and flowers.
BUZZ:
A good ol’ knees up.
SPEED:
Perfect time for an enemy to attack!
POLLY:
And the battle was hard and bloody. But the King and his army defeated them.
BUZZ:
So what about the Queen?
JAKE:
…She was shot in the heart with a single arrow.
RUSSELL:
And then they chopped off her head and fed it to the pigs.
STILL IMAGE& MOVEMENT: Broken castle and sad people.
POLLY:
After that day, the King never let his defences down again. He banned all things nice
from the Castle and the Princess grew up with no pleasure.
CAROL:
No entertainment or games…
NATASHA:
No music or dancing…
RUSSELL:
What – no telly?
POLLY:
And the King made the Princess wear a plain black dress.
BUZZ:
And eat plain bread…
SPEED:
Without even any butter!
STILL IMAGE & MOVEMENT: Bird and growing flower.
JAKE:
One day, the Princess heard a thumb against her window. She looked to see a dead bird
on the sill with a broken neck. She hid it and took it out to the vast plain gardens to bury
it. Little did she know, that a seed was inside that bird, and the following summer a
flower started to grow from the ground.
POLLY:
The Princess took a terrible risk and clipped the flower into her hair.
6
SPEED:
Don’t let the King see!
BUZZ:
Too late!
JAKE:
Daughter – what is that I see in your hair! You’re banished!
STILL IMAGE & MOVEMENT: Forest growing and yellow flowers.
NATASHA:
The Princess leaves the Castle and wanders the Kingdom, lost, not knowing where to go.
A wasteland.
CAROL:
After walking and walking she finally comes upon a forest.
JAKE:
Where she plants the flower which is full of seeds…
POLLY:
And one year later, there are hundreds of flowers. And then the following year,
thousands and then hundreds of thousands and then millions. As far as the eye could
see. A blanket of yellow flowers.
NATASHA:
And one day, a Prince arrives.
BUZZ:
Me?
SPEED:
No, me!
CAROL:
Yes the most handsome man in all the Kingdom.
RUSSELL:
That’d be me then…
STILL IMAGE & MOVEMENT: Prince & Chariot with Horses
JAKE:
And he rode in a golden chariot. Ones that only heroes ride in.
RUSSELL:
Yeah, with horses to pull it.
BUZZ:
What… no no no no.
RUSSELL:
Hurry up you lazy donkey!
SPEED:
Eugh… Fine. I’m Ned, the horse.
JAKE:
Thunder and Lightening, the Prince’s trusty steeds guided the way.
POLLY:
And then the Princess walked through the forest and found the steeds grazing.. Who are
you?, she said.
BUZZ:
Lightening.
RUSSELL:
Not you, you fool.
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JAKE:
The Princess looked out over her beautiful forest. A million yellow flowers. But the
Prince thought that she was more beautiful than all the flowers.
POLLY:
I know, a Prince like you who is strong and brave might not see the beauty I have
created here.
JAKE:
The Prince wanted the Princess to come with him and live in his enormous palace.
NATASHA:
But the Princess didn’t want to leave.
CAROL:
She loved her beautiful forest too much and never wanted to be stuck in a castle again.
RUSSELL:
Well if I’m not good enough for the Princess then… Look I’ve had enough. Let’s go.
JAKE:
Err.. so… umm… the Princess set the Prince an impossibly hard challenge.
BUZZ:
Challenge?
SPEED:
What challenge? I’ll do it.
RUSSELL:
No I’ll do it.
POLLY:
Find me something more beautiful than a million yellow flowers and I will come away
with you and be your Princess.
CAROL:
So the Prince searched.
SCENE 3:
STILL IMAGE & MOVEMENT: Rooftop. Create the different objects.
RUSSELL uses old broken props from stage.
NATASHA:
A shoe covered in rubies and diamonds and stitched with gold thread.
POLLY:
Not beautiful enough.
RUSSELL:
Well, here. A golden crown with trillions of jewels and diamonds. That good enough for
you?
POLLY:
Nope, not beautiful enough.
RUSSELL:
For goodness sake . . .
JAKE:
So the Prince found a Witch to help him find this impossible thing.
CAROL:
What? Don’t look at me. Eugh.. Typical. So you’ve come to me because the Princess
wants you to –
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CAROL uses props from stage to create WITCH.
RUSSELL:
I haven’t even told you yet!
NATASHA:
Err – she’s a witch.
CAROL:
I will help you on your task. Legend has it that the most beautiful thing to ever see is an
egg.
BUZZ:
An egg?
CAROL:
Yes, a dragon egg. Go to the depths of the mountain, find the dragon and retrieve it’s
egg for the Princess.
POLLY & JAKE: …as this is more beautiful than a million yellow flowers.
STILL IMAGE & MOVEMENT: ACTORS show Prince’s journey.
RUSSELL:
And so the Prince sets off on his dare-devil journey. Through fields and across rivers.
Over mountains and under bridges.
BUZZ:
Is he scared of the ferocious beasts he meets?
RUSSELL:
Not one bit!
SPEED:
Is he cold as he travels through snow blizzards?
NATASHA:
Course not!
CAROL:
And finally we reaches the dragons cave. And he can see the egg.
RUSSELL:
Where?
JAKE:
There.
SPEED & BUZZ: Where?
POLLY:
There.
STILL IMAGE & MOVEMENT: ACTORS create egg and nest.
RUSSELL:
Oh… yeah… I can see it now.
JAKE:
The egg was more beautiful than anyone could have imagined. It was sitting neatly on
the most delicately crafted nest. Made of trees instead of twigs and bushes instead of
leaves.
POLLY:
As the Prince climbs into the nest, insects dust up around him and twigs crack and
break.
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RUSSELL:
I raise the sparkling egg above my head and set off on my return journey.
NATASHA:
And when he returned the Princess thought the dragon egg was the most beautiful
thing she had ever seen and they were married.
ALL:
[singing wedding tune]
STILL IMAGE & MOVEMENT: Rooftop
CAROL:
Do you think it’s that easy? Find an egg and everyone lives happily ever after?
POLLY:
Umm… no.
CAROL:
Well, I am the Witch and I put a curse on the egg.
BUZZ:
Ooh not a curse. That’s pretty bad isn’t it?
SPEED:
Yes, I suppose so. Yes. The Princess loves the egg more than she loves the Prince and
she locks herself away.
RUSSELL:
Eugh.. well what I supposed to do now? I thought we’d finished the story?
JAKE:
Look, the egg is cracking!
NATASHA:
The spell is breaking!
CAROL:
A little baby dragon!
POLLY:
My lovely Prince – I am so sorry. The dragon egg cast a spell on me but now it’s hatched,
I love you again.
STILL IMAGE & MOVEMENT: Dragon stealing Princess.
CAROL:
And then the big dragon comes to the Kingdom and steals the Princess away for stealing
the egg.
NATASHA:
It kidnaps her for revenge. And they must go to the top of the mountain and get her
back.
JAKE:
I will do it.
BUZZ:
Why you?
SPEED:
Yeah, who have you been in this story anyway?
NATASHA:
We’ve all been people and you haven’t been anyone.
CAROL:
What could you do to save the day?
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JAKE:
I was the King. The Princess’s father.
NATASHA:
The one who wouldn’t let her have the flower?
RUSSELL:
So it’s all your fault then.
JAKE:
I know, I know. After she left my Kingdom I realised I was wrong. So I hid. I wouldn’t
show my face. I didn’t think anyone would want to see it anyway. Then I realised, me
hiding and not facing the problems made everything worse. So I’m here to save my
daughter. Save her from the dragon. Is there anyone else here brave enough to help
me?
ALL:
Let’s do it.
ENDING: TEACHER DIRECTED
STILL IMAGE & MOVEMENT: Battle against dragon using props from rooftop.. JAKE gets ‘hurt’ and
RUSSELL continue to battle.
ACTORS:
They fought and played. They were united. They were together. They worked together.
The fought the dragon. Together. Together they fought Sparkleshark.
ACTOR:
But then Jake stopped the story. He told them how the dragon was actually a good
dragon. Even though it had kidnapped the Princess.
ACTOR:
He told them that she had stolen it’s egg, the egg more beautiful than a million yellow
flowers, which was truly an awful thing to do. And while she had been in the mountains,
the dragon had looked after her and kept her warm.
ACTOR:
He told them how everyone had been afraid of the dragon because of what he looked
like.
ACTOR:
He told them that at night, the dragon spreads it magnificent wings and the sparkles
shine like stars. They didn’t want the dragon to die.
ALL:
I’m your friend Sparkleshark.
STILL IMAGE & MOVEMENT: Rooftop and Montage of Images; Prince and Princess, Families looking at
sky, Dragon. Fade back to opening positions of empty rooftop.
ACTOR:
Jake told them how the Prince and the Princess lived happily ever after. And how the
King was forgiven.
ACTOR:
And how, at night, when children see a bright light in the sky, their parents say, ‘Don’t
worry my love, it’s just the moonlight on the dragon’s wings.’
ACTOR:
They loved Jake’s story, and Jake loved that it wasn’t just his. They wanted more. They
vowed to do it again.
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ACTORS:
London skyline. Rooftops as far as the eye can see. TV aerials and satellite dishes, large
wet puddles, a sofa without the cushions, 3 broken deck chairs, a rusty garden table. A
lopsided wooden bench. Broken trolleys and buckets. Rubbish paper and plastic bags.
The moonlight shining down. They could see the possibilities now. The stories. To
escape. Just for a bit. To a place that’s not reality.
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