Bus drivers to put on stage version of sci-fi classic, Alien

After more than six months of hard graft, a stage version of 1979 movie Alien – which starred Sigourney Weaver as Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley – will be performed by theatre group Paranoid Dramatics.

Many of the group’s members, including four of the seven actors in the show, are employees of the Wilts and Dorset Bus Company, and a fifth member only recently left her job as a driver.

Director David Mitchell, an allocation supervisor with the bus company, said the group formed in June 2011 after driver Neil Mitchener came up with the idea to put on a pantomime.

“He seconded the rest of us into it to play different parts, and that’s how it all started,” Mr Mitchell said.

“It was such good fun that we decided we were going to carry on and form a group.”

The team decided their next performance should be an adaptation of Alien, and cast member Lydia Hayward’s son Luke penned the script for the show.

Each member of the group originally put in £100 of their own money to cover the costs, but the ambitious production has doubled its budget since then.

“One of the supervisors from the company, Pete, is doing special effects like the chest bursting and the eggs,” said Mr Mitchell.

“His partner Sue is a stunt double, because we’ve got someone getting their head knocked off. There’s a lot involved in it. We’ve got other bus drivers working on a flame thrower and a motion detector. We’ve started to think we’ve bitten off more than we can chew, but it’s coming together nicely.”

The show will raise money for the Allendale Centre and the Guillain-Barré Syndrome Support Group, as Mrs Hayward suffered with the condition at just 18 years old.

Performances will take place tonight and tomorrow and February 15 and 16 at the Allendale Centre in Wimborne, with doors opening at 7pm for a 7.30pm start.

Tickets are £7.50, or £5 for Wilts and Dorset Buses key card holders.

For more information on the show call 01202 887247.