Poppy

Poppy, a pantomime parody which explores British imperialism and the nineteenth-century opium wars, was first staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1982. It won the SWET award for Musical of the Year and was later re-mounted at the Adelphi. In 1988 the show was revived in a new version at the Half Moon Theatre and that is the text available here. Poppy is a celebration of Victorian values and exposes the hypocrisy, racism, drug dealing, money worship and sexual repression of the time through its favourite entertainment form. Dick Whittington, his man Jack, Sally the Principal Girl, the Dame, two pantomime horses, a flying ballet, a transformation scene and even the traditional song-sheet are all brought on to tell the serious and finally devasting story of the single most profitable crop of the British East India Company.