Runaway 4 O'Clock Club

# Where do you go when you know nobody can understand you?

# When it's just too much to handle?

# What do you do when you end up somewhere you never planned to?

# Washed out, stressed out like it was shampoo

# You should stay It can change

# There's good days and bad days

# But one day down the line this time is sure to stop

-# So the only time is now 4 O'Clock.

-4 O'Clock.

-#

# I'm just trying to tell you how I feel...

# Maybe magic is real. #

Someone got out the right side of the bed this morning.

Epic week coming up, Auntie Liz. It's Nero's time to shine.

Might be home late tonight.

I've got a dress rehearsal.

Sorry I can't make your show, love.

They won't let me change my shift at work.

Still no joy from Josh and Nathan?

You know they'd make it if they could.

It's chill. At least Mum and Dad are going to be there.

Yeah, they're going to be really proud of you.

-Anyway.

-Bye, love. Oi!

Can't you hurry up?

This is the third one of these you've made me

clean off this morning.

My arm is proper botchin'.

"Andress wears a wig". Oh, dear. Oh, dear.

I'm sure you don't need this at your time of life.

Have you ever thought about early retirement?

A little less stress might help with the old alopecia.

I do not wear a wig!

OK, guys. Rehearsals, please. Hip Hop Harry Potter.

Let's take it from the top.

# OK time to get my game face on

# And any thought of you beating me?

# Plain wrong

# This could last 90 days or nine minutes

# No time limits for wizards, this is Quidditch!

# Look for where the Golden Snitch is

# Could be any distance or any position where the pitch is

# And one kid is gonna hunt him down

# Harry da P, number one seeker in ya town

# Ten points if I throw that Quaffle through the hoop

# Brave heart can't score if I don't shoot

# Cos I'm flying high like a champion, yo!

# Want summa this then come at me, bro!

# Whoaa!

# Yeah! See what I did there?

# That's just me, P seeker extraordinaire

# Voldemort might've struck my parents down

# But if they could see me now, they'd be proud

-# Yeah, champion! Whose the champion?

-Ole, ole, ole!

-#

Good work, everyone. Nero - Daniel Radcliffe would be impressed.

Daniel who?

Clem, if you don't mind coming in a tiny bit quicker

with the lighting change after the second verse.

I don't even want to be here and you're cheeking me with criticism?

If you didn't want to be here, why did you volunteer?

Basically, we all signed up and she didn't want to feel left out.

Or maybe I'm just here to see you lot dance like puppets.

Could we focus, guys?

Can't I be Hermione, sir?

I'm already Hermione.

Yeah, and who's ever heard of a boy playing a girl anyway?

Actually, there's a tradition of gender-reversal in British theatre.

I'll reverse your gender if you don't shut up.

So, are we going to rehearse or not?

Let's take it from the top.

Mr Harris?

Ah, Miss Andress. Have you come to see us rehearse?

She does not look happy.

When does she ever look happy?

The woman's got a face like a pickled flip-flop.

You can't do this.

We'll be sued. Harry Potter is copyright.

I ran it past you.

I said we should do something like Harry Potter.

I assumed you'd do something like Harry Potter,

not actually Harry Potter.

But everything's written. You can't just call it off now.

Everyone's expecting an end-of-term show.

I never said there won't be an end-of-term show -

just not this one.

But there's no time.

You'll think of something.

OK, guys. Slight change of plan.

We won't be doing Hip Hop Harry Potter.

ALL: What?

My parents are flying over to see me in this.

You can't axe it.

Yeah. My dad was going to have a shave and everything.

I never said there wouldn't be a show. Just not this one.

But I'm the main part in this one.

I've even been rehearsing at home.

Just leave it with me. I'll sort something out.

Yeah, you better had.

-Oh! Argh!

-Argh!

Detention!

Detention? You can't give me detention. I work here.

No...oh, yes. That was just a joke.

If anything I should give you detention.

Don't be so ridiculous, I'm a teacher.

You're vandalising the school.

Oh, this?

This is just a mural. Extra curricular.

So was it you who has been doing this all term?

You're the phantom sprayer.

That is an absurd accusation. Why would a teacher behave like this?

Mate, what has gone wrong in your brain?

You used to be the head teacher.

Please don't tell anyone. I'll lose my job.

I'll lose my job if Andress finds out that

I let the phantom sprayer get away.

Or you could join me.

Together we could work together to bring down this tyrant.

I've always considered you to be the clever one amongst your friends.

I have got vexing of the arm from scrubbing off all this graffiti.

Either you tell Andress what you've been doing or I will.

OK, one more time.

# My name is Humpty

# They call me the Dumpty

# Made of egg, but I'm no numpty

# Fell off a wall with a thumpity thump, thumpty... #

Ergh.

KEYBOARD JANGLES

You're working late. Everything OK?

Miss Andress thinks we'll get sued if we do a Harry Potter musical,

so now I've got to come up with a new one.

In 24 hours?

I'm basically doomed.

Well, good luck with it all.

Thanks, Lizzie.

What if you didn't have to write a whole new one?

Just change some of the details.

What do you mean?

A few variations and you could have something entirely different.

Like when you introduce oxygen to two hydrogen atoms to make water.

Or if you introduce Caesium to... No, OK, forget it.

I'll help you go through it all.

He's had to write a whole new show overnight.

How rubbish is that going to be?

Hang on. We don't even know if he's botched it.

(Crawler.)

Oh, yeah?

Says the one that didn't want to be here, but couldn't wait to sign up.

Great news, everyone. It's not a whole new show,

just a few subtle differences.

Nero, instead of Harry Potter you're going to be Henry Porter.

Who?

What's Tiddilybooboo?

That's what we're going to be playing instead of Quidditch.

What's happened to the broomsticks, sorry?

They're now flying vacuum cleaners.

When Henry gets knocked off it, it's not because of a jinx,

it's because of an app on Professor Snoot's phone.

So, you all go to Hogleg's School Of Advanced Quantum Engineering.

Owen, you're Reg. Eleesha, you're Harmony.

I think I speak for us all when I say - what?!

Is this some sort of weird joke, sir?

It is either this or nothing.

I vote for nothing.

ALL: Yeah.

STUDENTS GRUMBLE

Hang on. Are we seriously going to bin everything we've worked on?

This isn't what we've worked on.

Fine, you let your parents down, that's your issue.

Great. Let's take it from scene four, the Sorting Hat -

sorry, the Deciding Computer.

A resignation letter. I wasn't expecting this.

Why now?

Well, you said it yourself, Anita.

Not being head is a waste of my talents.

I don't believe I said those exact words. Or any of them.

So where is this job?

It's a big, modern establishment that will utilise my skills.

My interview's this afternoon.

Then I wish you the best of luck and I accept your resignation, Crispin.

Thank you.

I can't see where I am going.

CLATTERING

# Welcome, welcome one and all

# To the lab, Hogleg's Great Hall!

# Now allow me to introduce you to the Logitastic Deciding Computer

# It's so darn futuristic If you blink then you've missed it

# It's gonna sort us all to go Into one of four bungalows! #

Put on your hats. Your hats. Put your helmet back on.

# I'll take Griffotron all day long

# If Dad was here, that's what he'd want!

# Well, if you're lucky, you could be there soon

# And learn how to wield a techno spoon

# It's like a wand you can make apps with

-# And futurise your whole life!

-That's sick!

-# Lost in space?

-They could show you the right way

# And tell you the weather in Neptune on Friday

# I'd like to get that wand

# Put right all the things that went wrong

# Find out who really built Stonehenge

# Find Lord Supermort, get revenge

# Well, there's an app for that, so might I suggest

# You log on Hoglegs's wi-fi

# Guys hold on to your bionic trousers

# The computer's deciding our houses!

-(Reg.)

-Reg!

-(Griffotron.)

-Griffotron.

-(Jake.)

-Jake. Jake!

-# I sell 35,000...

-(Harmony.)

-(What?)

-(Harmony.)

-Harmony.

-(Griffotron.)

-Griffotron.

-What?

-(Henry.)

-Henry.

-(Griffotron.)

-Griffotron.

Where are you going?

Just realised what this scene's about,

and I don't want anything to do with it.

Cheers very much.

It's just about a magic sorting hat.

Deciding Computer.

AKA streaming.

What's streaming?

When they label kids as soon as they set foot in school.

Like - you're a nerd, you're a bad kid, and you're an idiot.

But you can't quit, Clem. We've got four hours till showtime.

Yeah, I can. This is me quitting now.

Watch me as I quit my way out of the hall.

Quittity, quit, quit. Laters, sheep!

Baa.

Clem!

I'll get her.

-PHONE RINGS

-Nero, no phones in rehearsals!

Ah, it's my mum.

I don't care, turn it off.

Yeah, yeah. Whatever.

Yo, Mum. Have you landed yet?

Yeah, yeah, I know.

We're about to have our run-through any second now, yeah.

What?

But Mum, you promised. I haven't seen you and Dad in months.

But I've been rehearsing for weeks.

OK. I love you too, Mum.

Quit as well, did you?

I have now.

Where you going?

Five minutes ago you were all "I'm the one-man Nero Johnson show".

What made you see the light?

I'm going to see my parents.

-Thought they were coming to the concert.

-Nah.

Apparently I'm not important enough for them to get on a plane.

What, so they're still...

..in Kuwait. Yeah.

That's like halfway round the world, you lobster pot.

So I'll stow away on the wheel of a plane or something.

I saw a documentary where someone did that.

Yeah, didn't he, I don't know, totally freeze to death!?

Why is it that when someone stands up for something proper important

you totally bottle it?

What's that supposed to mean?

You're all mouth.

Wait up! Oi. Nero!

It's going to work. Parts of it are fine.

The most important thing is, we have something that resembles a show.

And the rest of it resembling a head-on fish collision.

What about Nero?

I'll get him. Nero!

Well, that's a whole new low.

You're only jealous because you're hardly in it.

Why would I be jealous?

I'm everybody's favourite Harry Potter character - the killer robot.

Nero's gone. He's vanished.

Maybe he's wearing an invisibility cloak?

Hey, how's it all going?

Yeah, yeah. Good, good. Just, erm, you know, ironing out the kinks.

Ha, kinks? We just lost our main actor.

I know we just lost our main actor!

Most likely he's sulking somewhere

because I swapped his owl for a Furby.

Probably just trying to punish me.

I dunno, sir. He disappeared right after that call from his mum.

What if his parents aren't coming to the show?

They wouldn't do that.

They are pretty rubbish.

Why do they always let him down? Owen, Eli, Lizzie - come with me.

We need to search the school.

The rest of you, I don't know, just rehearse something.

Not what I expected Kuwait to look like.

This is as far as we could get with the money I had.

I weren't exactly planning on doing this.

And that's why it's stupid and chancy. We should go back.

You scared or something?

No. It's just, I dunno, couldn't you...phone them?

I want to look them in the eye and ask them why I'm so unimportant.

You can go back if you want.

Nah, someone needs to keep an eye on you.

Last thing I want is you being stiffed

and I end up being haunted by your whingeing ghost.

Might be something over there.

Let's head inside and figure out our next step.

Have you completely minced your ham?

Maybe they'll have some maps we can check out.

Work out our next step.

Sir! We're just...

..on a field trip.

Field trip, my thumb.

I know that you're both involved in that school concert.

So why aren't you there?

Did you come here on your own?

Nah. Santa Claus dropped us off in his magic flying saucer.

I cannot believe the two of you have been so reckless.

Well, you'll just have to stay here until I've had my interview

and then I'll take you back myself.

An interview? For what? A job?

You're leaving Elmsmere? Get out!

You're practically married to that place.

I'm seeking a new challenge.

BOTH: Ohhh!

Are you here for the job in the coffee shop?

Yes. Crispin Bell.

Carl Weathers, general manager. Shall we?

You two stay right here.

You know these two?

Yes, I do, unfortunately. They're...

...his kids. I'm Flossie and he's Zeke.

Good luck with the interview, Dad.

Adorable little...rascals, aren't they?

Don't move. Don't speak to anyone.

Don't even think about making eye contact with anyone.

-Excuse me, would you mind keeping an eye on those for me, please?

-Yes.

Harris?

Yeah, like I want to talk to him.

Anything?

I've looked everywhere. Well, not literally everywhere, obviously.

-That would take an infinite amount of time.

-He's not answering his phone.

He's not in the boiler room, toilets,

or the cleaning products store room.

He's not in the playground or on any of the playing fields.

Or any of the bins.

Process of elimination - he's left school.

OK, fine then!

Where are you going?

-To find Nero.

-Sir, what about the show?

Tell Miss Andress we had to cancel.

I wouldn't want to be wearing his size nines when Andress finds out.

Aww! Great!

MOBILE PHONE BEEPS

Hello?

Dex! No, no, just a tiny bit of car trouble.

Nero's done what??

J Carter, king of the universe.

Bruv, you've not had a text or anything from Nero have you?

No. Should I have?

Dexter thinks he's done a runner.

Why would he do that?

Why do you think?

Aunt Bebe.

"If there's ever an award for most unreliable mother she'd ace it."

Dexter's out looking for him now.

No worries, bruv. I'll get my best people on the case.

MOBILE RINGS

Joshua! You do still love me, then.

What? No way...

Yeah, I'll get right on it.

Err, waitress?

-What do you want?

-It's an emergency.

Let me guess. There's a world monkey shortage?

Well, yeah. But even more important than that.

So come on. And bring those chips.

Who cut your hair? Seriously, or did you do it yourself, blindfolded?

Or did your cat do it? It's like 40 different lengths

and it looks like a flipping scarecrow

that's been dragged along by a busted tractor.

Zoe-Marie.

We need you.

What? We've still got to do it? Why?

I can't inform Miss Andress the show is cancelled.

Dexter will get into too much trouble.

We can still make it work. Think of everything

Mr Harris has done for you.

He did let me play his piano with my feet.

I suppose he is all right

ALL: OK, he's all right, he's not that bad.

Hang on, one issue.

Without Nero we don't have a main actor.

Don't we?

Josh Carter's little cousin? That's what we're doing?

He's all alone out there somewhere.

Ash told me we had free tickets to a theme park.

We knew you wouldn't have helped us look otherwise.

Well, he's not in there.

Have you gone in there to get yourself more chips?

You can't organise a search party on an empty stomach.

Bell told us to stay here.

Since when did you start doing what teachers told you?

Stay and do that if you want. I'm going.

Ergh!

What are you doing?

People always drop money out of their pockets

in these sort of places.

Maybe we can scrounge enough for a train to the coast.

Nero, think about this. This is desperate.

It's so unsafe, you obviously ain't thinking straight.

Now we're skulking around bins like a couple of dirty toilet rats.

OK, come. OK, let's go.

Unbelievable.

Let go.

Have you any idea how dangerous running away like this is?

How could you be so reckless?

They said they would come and see me in the show.

They let me down - again.

I don't care if your parents let you down a trillion times,

you don't just disappear without telling someone.

Do you have any idea how worried we all were?

Did you walk out on the school concert just to come and find me?

I want you to promise me that you will never, ever do this again.

Promise me!

All right, all right. I promise.

How did you even find us anyway?

I called him.

I can't be responsible for you miscreants

running around the streets, can I?

Dad! How did the interview go?

I better call Nathan and tell him that I found you.

Nathan knows? Wow, great.

Now he's going to tell Auntie Liz,

and I'll be grounded till I'm like 65.

Good. You deserve it.

Dex. You found him?

-Nathan?

-What you doing here?

We were on our way to your concert.

And then the dungheap carked it.

It was supposed to be a surprise.

We were worried about you, cuz.

Dex. You really blew off that show for me?

Andress, wow, she'll do her stack. We better get back there.

Save your hide.

Come on. There's still time.

AUDIENCE BOO

Well, that was a disaster.

It's you that wrecked the set.

You were the one who tripped.

Look, you try riding a vacuum cleaner

while reading your script at the same time.

At least we tried our best. They can't fault us in that,

can they?

Actually, let's go out the back way.

Where is Mr Harris? I need to speak to him - now!

He went to look for me.

I thought we'd lost you.

Are you all right?

Yeah, I'm crisp, man. Never felt better.

I did a runner, all right?

In all my years of teaching,

I've never encountered such a troublesome, wretched student.

And in all my years I've never met a teacher who cared

less about her pupils.

Don't you ever, ever...

Thank you for finding him.

Is this true, Crispin? What were you doing out of school?

I had a job interview. I'm going into catering and hospitality.

That is, working in a cafe.

Well, we can't have that. You belong here, at Elmsmere.

Isn't that right, Anita?

Yes, of course. Absolutely.

Oh, my flipping nutloaf! He's here.

Are you telling me

I've been pounding the streets for hours for no reason?

My feet are literally about to shrivel up and drop off.

So you guys were looking for me too?

We've been to every chip shop in town.

Can I recommend Kebab-A-Licious.

So are we going to get this show started or not?

We've already done it.

And it was rubbish.

Since when did we let a little thing like that stop us, huh?

Come on, then...

ALL: Yeah!

Thanks for holding the fort.

It was the least I could do. Well, not the very least -

that would be nothing.

I get it.

APPLAUSE AND CHEERS

# So we celebrate with a song

# Typically it's another victory for Griffotron

# The House Cup is back where it belongs

# And now I feel like I can right a few wrongs

# Still, Professor Snipe can give me the evil eye

# But I'm like - I never felt better in my life!

# There was a time when I felt so alone

# No friends, Mum and Dad in another time zone

# So alone that I even gave myself the double bluff

# Convinced my own brain that going solo was enough

# Sometimes I wished that I could wave a wand and disappear

# Wear an invisibility cloak and be outta here

# Cast a force field spell so nothing else could hurt me

# Tell myself that no-one in this world deserves me

# But now it's all coming back home

# In reality I was never really alone

# I'm just trying to tell you how I feel

# Maybe magic is real

# Cos you appeared right here and now I know I'm never alone

# I'm just tryina tell you how I feel

# Maybe magic is real

# Cos you appeared right here and now I know I'm never alone

# Look around, cuz, everybody's here for you

# Even if you rapped better than us we would cheer for you

# When their gone it's your real friends you miss

# I really should've had a kebab with those chips

# And we'll never leave your side, we'll look out for ya

# That's a word to the wise - Scout's Honour!

# Friendship kinda rules? That's fact

# Yeah, I suppose he isn't that bad

# When you bond atoms you create great features

# Solidarity for all! Except teachers

# Cos together we're strong and it's great!

# I still can't believe I work in this place

# I'm just trying to tell you how I feel

# Maybe magic is real

# Cos you appeared right here and now I know I'm never alone

# I'm just trying to tell you how I feel

# Maybe magic is real

# Cos you appeared right here and now I know I'm never alone

# Magic is real

# I'm never alone, I'm never alone, never alone

# I'm never alone, never alone, I'm never alone, I'm never alone

# I said I'll never be alone I said I'll never be alone

# Yes, yes. #

APPLAUSE

# Can't live with 'em

# And you can't kick 'em out

# When they're up they rub it in your face

# Kick you when you're down

# But what no-one understands them

# You know what they're on about

# Always gonna be around

# Gotta find a common ground

# If you know so much about me

# Where do I go from here?

# If you see 'em every day

# You can never get away

# Only time that you're the boss? 4 o'clock. #