Add to this a whole lot of lively music, singing, dancing, jokes, role-play, thought-provoking questions and prizes and you get a flavour of what a Primary Colours show is all about.
It is loud and lively, fantastic fun for the youngsters watching it – and being encouraged to join in – as well as for those presenting it.
But more importantly it is a unique and innovative way of getting across a serious message.
Primary Colours is the brainchild of Marcia Hutchinson and was set up in 1997 as a publishing and learning business specialising in cultural diversity.
Today with husband Pete Tidy and a team of specialist staff on board, Primary Colours has become renowned for its work in schools, both through its exciting and imaginative shows and its teacher training days.
On top of this, there are books and CD Roms on culturally diverse topics ranging from Caribbean food to the biographies of successful and inspirational black and Asian achievers, past and present.
It is for the shows though that Primary Colours is gaining a huge following by schoolsacross the country.
I meet up with Marcia and Pete at their Fixby home, where the business is based, and I am treated to excerpts from their latest production Rock 'n' Role Play.
This takes me from Elvis to Eminem, The Beatles to Mr Bean. It's a "singalong, dancealong, actalong, thinkalong" show exploring how black music has shaped popular culture in more ways than we can begin to imagine.
I also get chance to ride on the bus with human rights campaigner Rosa Parks, go surfin' USA and twist and shout.
It's hugely entertaining and not surprising that youngsters (it is aimed at key stage two pupils) love it.
But cleverly woven in and among the "controlled mayhem" I am also being educated because I am learning all about civil rights, segregation and responsibilities and discovering just how tough it was for people like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King.
"What we work very hard at is to deliver the message in a fun way and more importantly in a way children can understand," says Marcia.
"Yes, you have to have the serious stuff in and the gory, cruel bits, but you have to have lots of fun too. We can't send them away depressed. We want to send them away thinking," she adds.
And this is exactly where Pete, who has more than 25 years' teaching experience behind him, comes into his own.
He knows exactly how to pitch a show, something beautifully illustrated with another of Primary Colours' shows, The Adventures of Ottobah Cugoano, which tells the story of a young African boy, captured for the slave trade.
"When I am playing the part of the slave, I am sold off and whipped. The children love bartering a good price for me and they love it when I'm being beaten but then you can hear the hush when I turn around to reveal the marks on my back (pretend ones of course). That's when they realise just how it was," he says.
Marcia gave up a career in law – she studied at Brasenose College, Oxford before practising as a solicitor for 10 years – to form Primary Colours after finding it almost impossible to find culturally diverse books for her two young daughters, now 15 and 13.
"So I thought I'd write my own," says Marcia. She has written for The Guardian and Caribbean Times, is a talented photographer and regularly speaks at conferences on diversity.
The books were a great hit in schools and eventually turned into shows.
Another project, which includes a show, teachers' resources and books, is The Journey, the moving true story of Marcia's mother, Olivia, who left everything behind in her native Jamaica, including four young children, to come to England in the 1950s looking for a better life.
The project was piloted with the help of a number of schools including Lightcliffe CE Primary.
October is going to be hectic – it's Black History Month. They have lots of bookings, many of them return visits.
"It's lovely when we get asked back," says Marcia.
"And the messages we get back from staff and the children themselves are great," adds Pete reading one from a youngster who says he had a "great afternoon" and that "my dad was jealous when I told him all about it."
"Basically we want to create a better work for our children by helping them understand and embrace cultural diversity in our society," says Marcia.