It's been a fertile and varied year for home-grown musicals in Canberra. We've had the literary adaptation Heart of a Dog and the musical comedy Winging My Way to the Top. Now comes a family-oriented show, The Rokitelly Man. It's written by the team of Michael Heming and prolific musical theatre composer Andrew Hackwilll. The latter's earlier musicals include It Was That Way When I Got Here.

The Rokitelly Man has been in the works for about six years. Director Richard Block says he was invited to an early workshop and listened to a demo music track.

"I thought, 'This show has to be done' - it's so much fun, so extraordinary and clever.''

Heming moved away from Canberra and work on the show stalled for a while but picked up again recently. Block wanted to mount it this year and Ickle Pickle Productions - which has produced many children's shows in Canberra - came on as co-producer.

The Rokitelly Man is set somewhere in the recent past, in about the 1960s. Jeremy Drake (played by Miles Harrison) is a shy, awkward young man who works as a packer at Pembleton's Toy Emporium, the biggest, busiest toy store in the country. But he dreams of becoming a toy designer and spends his spare time working on a remote-controlled robot, the Rokitelly that can move and dance.

"It has one fatal flaw: it keeps bursting into flames," Block says.

Jeremy's friend and co-worker Paul (Michael Jordan), a ladies' man, isn't much help but another fellow employee, Cindy (Alex McPherson) - on whom Jeremy has a crush - suggests he takes it to the heads of the company,

Mrs Pembleton (Debra Byrne) is the owner of the Emporium and working for her are Richard (Max Gambale), the head of marketing and the head of design, Erol (Joe McGrail-Bateup), who is Jeremy's idol. And when they see the Rokitelly, they are enthusiastic about its potential - especially since times are tough. Erol takes Jeremy under his wing and it looks as though the young man's dream will come true, But all is not exactly as it seems.

Thompson, 21, has been appearing on stage since 2011 in plays and musicals including the hero in Back to the '80s, the title character in Winnie the Pooh and Jesus in The Book of Everything. If he's getting typecast as nice guys, he says, "There are worse things to be typecast as."

He enjoys the fact that he is getting to create a character in a new show.

"You get a blank canvas and you can do whatever you want with it."