It all started with a joke.
But, as their name suggests, it was an unintended gag that sparked the start of a hilarious musical journey for Dewsbury friends Chris Fox, 20, and Daniel Sean Henry, 23, who go by the name The Happy Accidents.
Officially established in 2013, their project is the culmination of 10 years spent acting, singing and most importantly, creating jokes and skits together with Dewsbury Arts Group.
With it they have penned dozens of infectious songs brimming with witty one-liners and takes on the world around them, focusing on everything from backseat drivers to the farcical sexiest men on the bus.
“It started properly while we were rehearsing for The Producers, which was being put on by Huddersfield Musical Theatre Company at the Lawrence Batley Theatre,’’ said Dan.
“There was a joke running amongst the actors about creating our own musical called Ellipsis for some reason.
“One day when we had a night off Chris and I were just messing about on the piano together and ended up writing this parody song for it called I’m in Love with my Reflection, which in our heads was going to be the big number.
“We put it on Facebook and got a big reaction from our friends so just kept going with it.
“We decided where it was going to be set and came up with another funny song called Welcome to Dewsbury.
“However, there eventually came a point when we realised that although we were writing lots of funny songs we didn’t actually have a plot.”
They dropped the musical idea in favour of using their now burgeoning catalogue of songs to form a musical comedy act for the stage.
Dan, who works at the Sweet Emporium in Batley, added: “Our ideas come from everywhere – I love creating comedy verses about mundane things or songs about things no one had ever written about before.
“One of my favourites is Brother from Another Mother – we wanted to write a song like Randy Newman did for Toy Story.
“Our dream is that one day we’ll see Kermit the Frog on stage performing it; it’s very Muppety.
“Another is Sexiest Men on the Bus,’ which was based on the many narcissistic songs on the radio.
“We came up with the idea for unsexy characters and put them in one of the most unsexy places – a double decker bus.”
Dan says that managing to hit the right note with musical comedy is not easy as it may appear.
“Musical comedy is a strange beast – not only do you have to be quite funny with your lyrics but you need good music to go with it.
“Chris is an amazing multi-instrumentalist and I think he can make the music humorous itself – it’s quite tricky to get that right balance.
“At open mics you get a lot of Ed Sheeran characters but our attitude is just to do it for a laugh. We just want people to leave with a grin because there is so much seriousness in the world today.”
Already having made a name for themselves in Dewsbury, they are now setting their sights on Edinburgh Fringe, where they will perform their show, ‘Cheer Up, It Might Never Happen!’ every night from August 23 to 29 at Chiquito’s basement in Frederick Street.
“We went there with the arts group in 2010 to perform Evil The Musical,’’ said Dan.
“It got a mixed reception but we had a lot of fun and thought it would be perfect for the stuff we’re doing now.
“I mean, we could easily fall flat on our faces because it is a risk but we think people will hopefully respond quite well.
“We went to Amsterdam recently and ended up at an open mic in this hotel with cool stoner types who were listening to really depressing folk music.
“Chris and I were just getting more and more drunk at the bar at the back thinking about how badly we were going to go down when we went on last but we came on and the place came alive.
“I’m not even sure if the audience had a clue what we were talking about but they were all laughing.”
They are putting on five warm-up gigs in Dewsbury and Brighouse, which will include a performance at Czerwik’s Fine Wine and Cheeses on Commercial Street on August 19.
Dan added: “We like to write a song specific to the different venues we play in.
“I’m vegan and now teetotal so I thought what better place to write the song ‘Vegan and teetotal in the cheese and wine shop’ for the gig.”
