Robinson Crusoe and the Pirates

I always look forward to the week before Christmas because I am always guaranteed two hours of joy and laughter at this society’s annual pantomime. An excellent choice of script yet again provided an audience with the chance to enthusiastically cheer and boo appropriately. The setting for most of the action was hot countries and tropical islands so enabling bright and cheerful scenery and backcloths. In contrast, we saw Davey Jones’ locker under the sea. It was a very impressive set of scenery. The thirty children in the cast were fantastic in that they knew all the song words and the choreography given to them was expertly executed.

A well written script provided the usual eclectic mix of characters required for a pamtomime. The love interest was beween Robinson Crusoe (Kiarnie Monin) and Juanita (Lizzie O’Haire). Her father was the Captain (John Stovold). These three gave us the bare bones of the story and songs from the two lovers was delightful.

The dame in this instance was Margarita Juicilita (Mark Barnes) - a seasoned and expert exponent of this particular type of role. The “Silly Billy” role was Nutty Nick (Lee Payne) - another person whose necessity it is to interact with an audience.

The good and evil divide was provided by Coral (Ellie Leaver) and Davey Jones (Aimee Bullimore) giving much joy and participation to the attendees. Also on the more naughty, rather than evil, side but in fact a little simple were the well played parts of Skull-Duggery (Grace Brandon) and Cross-Bones (Carol Clark).

When the second act began we met even more interesting people as the treasure-seeking individuals approached the “X marks the spot”. There was Mumbo Jumbo (Debz Ravera) and Hocus Pocus (Issie Black). Through them we met the infamous Friday (Peter Woodman). This was a great part, in that he was just a normal man going about his day-to-day business in normal clothes and being a generally nice chap with no strange affectations or unusual characteristics. One last part to mention was that of the parrot, Poll (James Rickus), squawking and talking throughout the performance.

Costume changes were many, colourful and must have kept the wardrobe section busy for hours. Well done. The music was varied, happy, well sung and expertly accompanied by the keyboard, bass and drummer.  All in all, an extremely enjoyable evening.

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