On Thursday the 15th of November, Years 7, 8 and 9 and Andre from Year 13 took to the stage in "Blastoff ... Mr Jones goes to Jupiter" - a space musical produced and directed by Mr Peter Onslow, Miss Sonia Eastham and Miss Kirsty Hammal.

For those of you not lucky enough to enjoy the splendid performance on the night here is a brief synopsis of the plot ...

Blastoff tells the tale of Simpleton Middle School, a failing school somewhere in the U.K.  The eccentric Headmaster, Mr Jones (played by André Verster, Year 13), finds it impossible to cope with the day to day matters involved in the running of a school.  Despite the best efforts of his homely secretary, Mrs Taylor (played by Lizzie Plumb), enrolment numbers are steadily falling.  Miss Huggins, the dreaded school inspector (played by Maryam Hayatu-Deen), is homing in for the kill and the closure of the school is imminent.

Added to this are the complaints of the school's three cleaning ladies, Doris, Gladys and Mavis (played by Amelia Fuller, Serena Grey and Maya Kudryavtseva, about the state of their mops!  To boost the school's image, Mr Jones and some of the children build a rocket in which they will voyage to Jupiter and back.

A successful launch, aided by the resourceful Mrs Taylor (now mission control), sees Mr Jones and 8 pupils well on the way to Jupiter via Mars.  They encounter a UFO (Libby Urquhart-Ducharme) with an identity crisis, an aggressive Black Hole (Simon Maeder), some hippy style Aliens on Mars (Rebecca Haworth, Zoë Jellicoe, Michelle Hinton and Madeline Simmer) and finally a kindly White Hole (Elliot White).

Meanwhile, back on Earth, the interest of the media has been aroused and Mrs Taylor finds herself the centre of attention as the news travels nationwide.  Eventually, the intrepid space crew and Mr Jones have enough of space and return to a heroes' welcome, despite having only reached Mars.  The threat of closure is lifted and the future of the school seems to be secured.

Special thanks go to the cast, directors and producers: Mr Onslow, Miss Eastham and Miss Hammal, Mrs Schibler for the wonderful costumes, Miss Rauf and team for the Props, Mr Shaw, Miss Bolton and team for Scenery, Mr Ward and Miss Byng for Video and Spot, Miss Hickey, Madame Bodenmann, Miss Aminot and team for Make Up and finally to Grant for lighting and Alina for keyboard performances.

For more pictures check out Photocall from Blastoff.