In your Fizzog for a dramatic lesson

With their grey hair, slippers and head scarves, the group of loud-voiced old ladies cause a few curtains to twitch as they walk arm-in-arm down the street.

They draw even more startled looks as they get into their car, turn the dance music up, put on some gold bling and start bobbing their heads to the beat.

"Even though we were dying to laugh we had to try to keep our faces straight," says Jacky Fellows, one of the founders of Fizzog theatre company.

"We filmed that sketch walking down a road in Dudley and we did get a few strange looks from people.

"It is a video we play for school pupils while we are doing a costume change and they think it is hilarious."

In 1999 Sue Hawkins, Deb Nicholls and Jacky Fellows graduated from Dudley College after studying a HND in community theatre.

The trio formed Fizzog – a Black Country word for face – and use regional humour to entertain and pass important messages on to schoolchildren. "When we finished the course we decided to get together and put into practice what we had been trained to do," says Deb, aged 37, from Wordsley.

"The first few days were spent days sitting around a kitchen table coming up with ideas and it wasn't long before our first commission came along.

"Dudley PCT got in contact with us asking if we could create a play to tackle sexual health issues in schools - and ever since then we haven't stopped performing."

Deb says things really took off after that and they have done a number of plays for schools, including a bullying awareness programmes which toured around London, Dover and Stockton.

"The bullying awareness programme is done in the panto format and the characters are so well known that we can relax into the roles," says Deb.

"It is the story of Cinderella, but we use comedy and music to get the messages across.

"It is usually aimed at seven to 11-year-olds and we have had teachers say that we are the best touring programme they have seen."

Other sketches that Fizzog do are based around the Second World War, which focuses on the experiences local people had as children. They have also done research on the Victorians and Sue says the children react well to being taught through drama.

"We don't like to use a stage because it is about participation so we don't want there to be a barrier between us and the audience," says Sue, aged 37, from Wordsley.

"While doing some research on Victorians we went to the Black Country Living Museum in Dudley and we thought it would be a great setting for some of our plays.

"We went to a Bottle and Glass pub at the museum and spoke to the barmaid Debbie and in 2006 they asked us to do a performance one weekend."

Fizzog are now regularly seen in the streets at the museum entertaining crowds with their living soap opera.

"It is a living museum and we bring a different element to it as we help to bring things like the chainmakers festival to life and we do a panto at Christmas time," says Jacky, who is from Bilston. Jacky says that last year Fizzog decided to branch off into staging Black Country comedy nights which proved to be a big hit.

Fizzog, which is now based at Thornes Community College in Brierley Hill, is putting on another comedy night.

Jacky said: "With the credit crunch at the moment more people are looking towards comedy and we feel we have tapped into something amazing."

* For information on the Black Country Comedy Night on April 3 at 7.30pm log on to www.fizzogtheatre.co.uk or call 07980 595178. Tickets are £10 each or five for £40.