Robinson Crusoe and the Pirates

I will say this right at the start of my comments – of all the amateur pantomimes I have seen this season, this one was the best, with some great surprises. 

A group cannot go wrong with a Frayn script. As someone who has directed his scripts for many years, we were very definitely in familiar territory. This script bears a striking similarity to Dick Whittington but presents this story in a very well thought through way with some entertaining supporting characters. With a Frayn script you can be sure all the essential pantomime elements are present. There was a plethora of audience participation which is essential to keep the kids engaged throughout, and this was spread nicely across the whole evening to ensure the show had an even feel to it. The humour was aimed at the kids, but with plenty just slightly above their heads to keep the adults satisfied as well and to ensure the laughs keep coming. Yes, much of the script is familiar to regular Frayn devotees, but this matters not. The beauty of pantomime is that the audience know what they are going to get and their expectations should never be confounded.

The production was very well cast indeed and with no weak links in a strong line up. Robinson was an attractive character with a great singing voice and an engaging personality and was well paired with Maria who was a good traditional principal girl. Captain Seasalt (similar to the Fitzwarren character) gave a strong performance and served well as a sort of link guy and had a nice fatherly presence. The beautifully named Margarita Juicilita is the dame, and was energetically played. I do love this performers way with the dame character, rollicking through the laughs and having a good laugh at his/her own jokes. Comedy was well served by the dame , and also by Nutty Nick, beautifully camp and daft. These two were the backbone to the audience participation throughout. 

Captain Cut throat was a nice threatening presence and good baddy character, and in this script, he was hampered nicely by the pair of idiots Skull Duggery and Cross Bones. I would have liked to have seen more of this threesome, but that is down to the script . Fairy Coral was a nice balance to the bad characters and made the most of her appearances. Although Cut Throat is scripted as the main baddie, another baddie down at the bottom of the sea is Davy Jones who was played by the assistant director. This character was given a really nice sly portrayal which I really enjoyed. 

Once Robinson is ship wrecked we meet some lovely bizarre support characters in the shape of Friday (long ship wrecked but speaking perfect english) , Mumbo Jumbo the head native with a taste for human flesh, Hocus Pocus , a sort of witch doctor and Poll the parrot. All four performances were very strong. Most Frayn scripts have about 10 or 11 characters. In this script these are extra and in many productions these are the characters that might be weaker links, but not here. Strong performers were cast. 

Choreographic staging just gets better every year here so congratulations to the young choreographer who did a fantastic job to aid the strong direction. The chorus choreography was kept simple for the ensemble and this looked neat and tidy, but the team of dancers had really lively and energetic choreography which sat well with the numbers. They made numerous appearance and appeared to have a different costume each time they appeared. Those girls must have been exhausted from constant changes. They were lively and they all smiled which is an essential . I really loved their contribution to the show. 

The choice of musical numbers was first rate and the superb band (with a great brassy and bouncy feel) really gave those musical numbers lots of punch. 

Direction kept the pace fairly tight on the whole. There were only a few dead spots. My only other slight criticisms included one that I have made here almost every year – a lot of the musical numbers were too long. Ideally these should be trimmed to about 90 seconds in pantomime to ensure nothing outstays its welcome. Luckily in this regard all numbers were well staged and executed so it didn't matter too much here. The other comment is one I grapple with every time I stage a Frayn script. The final scene (prior to the sing along) is the one where all the strands of the story are tied up and the hero gets his girl. It is a scene that by necessity involves all characters so the stage can get a bit crowded and the dialogue gets a pit patchy with everyone contributing. It is also usually the scene left to last to stage and often can be a bit messy and that was so here. It had a feel of rushing to get the show wound up. 

Now, I come to the shows surprises and spectacle. This group has used flying effects before. The Pavilions has a nice height to enable this to be effective. The fairy flew up and away. That was great I thought … but then Robinson also flew a bit later, but not only that, he did somersaults in mid air while singing. If that was not enough, later in the show he flew across the stage while riding a turtle. Yes , you read that right. That was was simply amazing and by then if there was any doubt at all about the technical credential of this show, that washed any doubt away. But that wasn't all, there was front projection on the gauze and when the ship was wrecked we were treated to a whole filmed sequence showing the main characters floating down into the depths. Technically this show was absolutely superb. It is a shame that the late Jan date means it has to wait until the 2024 awards. Lighting and sound were excellent to complement all this flying and filmed wonderment. 

Congratulations on a fantastic evening that I could have sat through all again.

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