The Magic Lunch Box

The Magic Lunch Box is a twisted Australian tale with many familiar characters! A school kid takes drastic measures when they become fed up with the same old food in their lunch box.  When a strange character appears and offers a special app to make lunch more exciting, the kid gladly plays along.  Join all sorts of storybook characters as they pop up at the maddest Mad Hatter’s Tea Party ever! Will our school kid finally have the lunch their heart desires and stomach requires?

Excerpt from the play:

CAST OF CHARACTERS

School Kid – this character must be titled to suit your school or town. For example Grammar School Kid or Canberra School Kid
Red/Leaf – (Pokémon Kid) this character can be changed to suit whichever pop culture figure is important to your group
Bunyip Bluegum – a koala
Barnacle Bill – a sailor
Sam Sawnoff – a penguin
Albert the Pudding – a magic pudding dish
Alice – a young girl in a blue dress
Dorothy – another young girl in a blue dress
Toto – Dorothy’s dog. This character should be very tall
Gretel – a further young girl in a blue dress
Mad HATTER – a gentleman hosting a tea party
Hare – a rabbit friend also at the tea party
DORMOUSE – the mouse at the tea party
Witch – a disgruntled woman

Chorus
Snugglepot – a gum nut baby
Cuddlepie – a gum nut baby
Banksia men – the evil characters
Hansel (voice only) – Gretel’s brother who is lost

ACT ONE
Chorus of assorted Australian animals and gum nut babies recite or sing with mawkish sentimentality. Appropriate hand gestures in unison starting with paws over hearts.

Chorus
I love a sunburnt country
A land of sweeping plains
Of lofty mountain ranges

In more relaxed style sing:

Once a [TOWN] School Girl
Camped beside a Pokémon
Under the shade of a [INSERT NAME OF TOWN] Tree
Chorus divides into two retiring upstage left and right revealing School Kid) resting upstage centre.

Chorus
What’s that jolly jumbuck
You’ve got in your tuckerbox?

School Kid
(waking and melodramatically producing standard plastic school lunch) This is no jolly jumbuck. This is my lunch and it’s the same thing day after day after day. (Opening box and producing items with a flourish) Two vegemite sandwiches, one sliced carrot, one apple, one box of orange juice and a very soggy lamington.

Chorus
(recoiling in horror) Oh no, not a soggy lamington!

School Kid
Week in, week out, it’s the same boring lunch. I said to Mum, “If you give me the same thing one more day, I’ll go bonkers. But she just said, “You’ve got something from each of the basic food groups in that lunch. You should count yourself lucky, some children don’t have any lunch at all.” But it’s no good. I can’t stand it anymore. I’m going to end it all, and my ghost may be heard in the mists of [INSERT WATER NEAR TOWN], ‘Two vegemite sandwiches, one sliced carrot, one apple, one box of orange juice and a soggy lamington’. (Takes flying leap from centre stage front onto mattress at floor level or jumps from chair)

Chorus
Oh no.

School Kid
Oh yes…but what’s wrong? There’s no water in this lake. It must be a virtual lake! Am I playing Pokémon Go?

(Chorus exits. Red/Leaf from Pokémon enter)

Red/Leaf
Did someone call?

School Kid
Fantastic! It’s Red! And for real! Dad won’t have to buy me that [INSERT POPULAR GAMING DEVICE] after all.

Red/Leaf
What’s up man?

School Kid
I had just decided to end my intolerable existence by leaping into this lake. I could not face the prospect yet again of two vegemite sandwiches, one sliced of carrot, one apple, one box of orange juice and a very soggy lamington. So I resolved to bring my young but oh so promising life to a premature termination as a sign of symbolic protest.

Red/Leaf
You dumb kid. You don’t need a watery grave. You need a change of diet. Haven’t you heard of Pokémon Lunch Box?

School Kid
What – Pokémon Lunch Box? Can I get that on iPhone?

Red/Leaf
If you play this Magic Lunch Box game, which is guaranteed to contain no gratuitous violence, explicit scenes, coarse language…and certainly no adult concepts…you could find a new and exciting school lunch. You may never have to taste a vegemite sandwich again!

(enter Snugglepot and Cuddlepie with an iPhone 7 – the latest and greatest – on a pillow)

Red/Leaf
Here is your iPhone 7 with the Magic Lunch Box game downloaded. Just open the app and here we go!

School Kid
Here goes (presses button)

 (cast makes tableaus of each famous Australian story on either side of the stage as School Kid sees them on the iPhone)

School Kid[INSERT FIRST MODERN STORY]. That does not sound very promising…[INSERT SECOND MONDER STORY] Not much to eat there…. THE MAGIC PUDDING – that sounds more promising. Let’s go for it.

(Enter Bunyip Bluegum, Barnacle Bill, Sam Sawnoff and Albert the Pudding marching onto the stage reciting verses of ‘The Puddin’ Owners’ Anthem’)

Bunyip Bluegum, Barnacle Bill,
Sam Sawnoff and Albert the Pudding
The solemn word is plighted
The solemn tale is told
We swear to be united
Three puddin’ owners bold

When we with rage assemble
Let puddin’ snatchers groan
Let puddin’ burglars tremble
They’ll ne’er our puddin’ own

Hurrah for puddin’ owning
Hurrah for friendship’s hand
The puddin’ thieves are groaning
To see our noble band

Hurrah, we’ll stick together
And always bear in mind
To eat our pudding gallantly
Whenever we’re inclined

School Kid
This is cool. That pudding looks delicious. But who are you?