The Music Teacher

The Music Teacher is a musical comedy written by and starring 2009 Writers' Guild award winner Richie Webb as music teacher Nigel Penny.

Shut away in a windowless practice room in a regional arts centre, Nigel endures a succession of pupils. The middle-aged bachelor with his homemade Moog; the six-year-old trombonist whose arms aren't quite long enough; and the female student who is forever in a state of tearful crisis and never gets her oboe out are just some of the people who enter Nigel's airless little room.

Nigel also has to contend with Belinda, the panicked director of Letchington Arts Centre, whose continued struggle to maintain it as a going concern impacts increasingly on his world.

Nigel also suffers from crippling stage fright. He hasn't performed in public for years and is not looking to rectify this. Belinda, however, is.

Listeners' are privy to Nigel's thoughts. His conversations and musical performances are littered with asides which flit from commenting on what is happening and wandering off on a tangent, to becoming consumed with the prospect of performing again.

Musically, listeners hear it all: the accordion; singing dogs; death metal guitar... and, as the entire show takes place in Nigel's tiny, windowless room, the claustrophobia is audible.