Quiz questions have proved popular with TV audiences and pub-goers alike. In our house QI, Never Mind The Buzzcocks, Have I Got News For You and Are You Smarter Than a Ten Year Old? are staple viewing, but for one Watford resident, a quiz show conundrum has resulted in a brand new musical, Scrimshaw, which opens at the Pump House Theatre next week.

Karen Rhodes moved to Watford 25 years ago when first married and once her three children had reached school age, she started her own business from home.

“It was called Memory Lane Photography, “ recalls Karen. “I created black and white, hand tinted and sepia toned photography for children, using themed props.

“After a successful ten years, I took a career change to allow me more time to pursue my interests in art and writing.”

Karen went on to produce several successful scripts: Liberty Creek, You are my Sunshine and Pollyanna Jones won best junior play, consecutively from 2005 to 2007, at the Bushey and SW Herts Drama Festival. The first play, a western spoof, also won a comedy award, and Karen received the adjudicator’s award for her script based on World War Two evacuees.

For her latest play, Karen returned to a quiz show question that had fascinated her for more than 30 years for inspiration. The idea came from the long-running British game show Call My Bluff, a precursor to QI in many ways, where teams try and decipher the meaning of a word from one of three often quite bizarre definitions. This has resulted in an exciting new musical, Scrimshaw, for the Pump House stage, set in the early 18th Century.

Her involvement with the Pump House Children and Youth Theatre came about when two of her children joined the ranks.

“PHCYT is entirely run by talented volunteers and I began helping out with set painting and photography. I also took a part- time course in creative writing at West Herts College. The tutor, Linda Spurr, encouraged me to send off one of my short stories for publication. My writing style was heavy on dialogue and so it seemed a natural progression when I scripted a few short sketches for the PHCYT.”

With Scrimshaw, dubbed Les Miserables meets Pirates of the Caribbean, she has now fulfilled her ambition to produce a full length musical.

“While I enjoyed writing for the children’s theatre, I was eager to script something more adult for our youth members and discussed a new project with Lee Farman, the artistic director of the Pump House Children’s and Youth Theatre. Two years later, that project is about to hit the stage.”

The story leads us from England’s shores to the Americas after the death of an infamous pirate. His estranged offspring (from different mothers) are gathered for a reading of the will in Port Royal, Jamaica. Each has an engraved piece of scrimshaw from which clues are transcribed, together they reveal the whereabouts of their father’s ill-gotten gains. But, will the sinister solicitor recognise the impostor amongst them?

According to dictionary sources, ‘scrimshaw’ is the art of decorating or carving shells, bone or ivory – often created by whalers using the byproducts of harvesting marine mammals. The carvings are often elaborate and take the form of pictures and lettering highlighted by a pigment on the surface of the material.

As well as wrestling with word definitions, Karen says she spent the best part of a year researching her nautical theme.

“I undertook historical research from books, the internet, museums, documentaries and, of course, films; how could I not indulge in the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, which after all had been based on real pirates and popular myths?

“Consequently, when it came to writing the plot, trying to avoid everything that had already been done proved impossible, until I came across the bizarre events leading up to The War of Jenkins’ Ear, a piece of history which I felt compelled to include and which introduced a Spanish flavour to the musical.”

This swashbuckling adventure is an intriguing mix of danger, deceit, romance, comedy and compassion, set to new music by Lee Farman, artistic director at the Pump House, and composer George Wells.

Karen says “Lee and George Wells have a wealth of musical expertise between them and have written some great music for the piece, but writing lyrics is new to me and has been a real challenge. Some songs just flowed from the word go and were instant favourites with the cast, others we’ve had to rewrite. As the script has a naturalistic style we have tried to integrate the music accordingly.

“The youth have worked incredibly hard in bringing the script and characters to life and I’m very proud of them. Two of our youth members, Nikki Carter and Jessica Sullivan have choreographed some of the dancing and the boys have particularly enjoyed the swordfight rehearsals set by our fight director Tom Kanji.

“Our stage is being turned into a ship, as we speak and the wardrobe team are busy creating more than 60 costumes.”

Scrimshaw opens at the Pump House Theatre, Local Board Road, Watford on Thursday, January 15 and runs until Saturday, January 24. Tickets: 07903 411150, www.pumphouse.info