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 A one-act children’s play with songs. First produced in 1972 by the Dance Drama Theatre, on tour. A slightly re-written version was produced in 1977 by the Wakefield Tricycle Company at the Arts Theatre, Great Newport Street and on tour. Popular with schools and amateur companies, a production by Downe Right Bonkers on the Edinburgh Festival fringe in 1995 won rave reviews. A workman goes into a café and is served too much pepper. He complains of a tickle in his noses and sneezes too violently. The ‘tickle’ is ejected – and arrives, pathetic as a new-born baby, on the stage. He is only anxious to find a friend and a home, but apparently nobody likes a Tickle. He becomes involved with three wicked Germs, causes chaos in a Fair and elsewhere, but finally finds his friend and a safe home – with a laughing hyena. This is an ensemble piece. A cast of six is probably the minimum, but there are many more roles than this. “Wood, like Lewis Carroll, understands the childish imagination, its mixture of fantasy and visceral logical curiosity. Tickle herself is the incarnation of an itch, a wayward feathery sprite, looking, like a child, for recognition and a place in the world. On the way, she disrupts a bus queue, gets stuck in a tumble dryer, goes to the circus and falls in and out with some low-life germs and so learns to make good decisions. “Audience participation is very much invited, and yesterday’s young patrons enjoyed themselves vastly.
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