Pinocchio

Pinocchio is one of those stories sitting just outside the core of the pantomime canon; there are occasional productions, but they are not particularly common.    This version had the advantage of staging the entire first act in a single set - the beautifully realised toy section of a large department store, where Pinocchio’s creator, Gepetto (Neville Green) is the toy maker.  Something is not-quite-right in the store, and there’s an undercover detective investigating.  This was Grazia, played by Keisha Ranger who becomes the romantic interest of Jimmy Crankit, the lift boy (Susannah Bond).  They discover - a little late - that the department store owner (Richard Sansom) is the villain who is, with his henchmen (henchcreatures?) Fungus the Fox (Shawn Condra) and Maggot the Cat (played by Jaymes Mackrell in a lovely sort of  growly Brooklyn accent), turning children into stuffed toys.

Their choice of children brings us onto another of the principal roles: Mama Scrumpi.  This occupies the slot normally associated with a pantomime dame, in this case a larger-than-life former movie star, now running a stage school.  Whilst a man could have been cast as the dame, in this case the role was filled by Hannah Marks, and it benefitted from her excellent singing voice.  It also reversed the normal pantomime motif with Mama Scrumpi being courted by the lonely Gepetto, rather than having her do the chasing. 

The children in her theatre school were the ones targeted by the kidnappers - with the subterfuge of luring them away to a career in Hollywood.  This was also the excuse that led into a top-hat and tails Hollywood dance routine from the adult chorus, to the great delight of the audience who became so rowdy that I thought there was a danger of the chorus corpsing.

To the rescue (of the children, not the adult chorus) come Grazia, Jimmy, Gepetto and Mama Scrumpi, but it is Pinocchio, brought to life by Fairy Sapphire who eventually saves the day.  Jenny Green had trained-up two sets of pupils for the stage school and two Pinocchios.  It was (I think!) Nathaniel Bond’s turn when I saw the show, and he made an excellent job of the animated, slightly awkward wooden boy, filled with knowledge but with no experience of the world.

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