Treasure Island

I am sorry that I didn’t have my Traditional Pantomime Bingo Card with me at this production as practically all of the required components were present and correct.  Terrible jokes? Check.  Audience sing-along?  Check.  Children invited onto the stage, shout-outs for parties, sweets thrown into the audience?  Check, check, check.  Calls and responses?  Oh yes there were!

It’s a small venue, so there was no need for the actors to project to the back of the stalls as that was only six rows away.  This is the sort of theatre where the performers can lean over and shake hands with anyone in the front row, or indeed sit on their laps.  The company didn’t so much break through the fourth wall as demolish it entirely, establishing a rapport with the audience that simply wouldn’t be possible in a larger venue.  And this was the great strength of “Treasure Island” – the pervasive sense of community.  The auditorium was evidently packed with the friends and relatives of the large cast, together with groups from various local organisations and businesses, all cheering the Players on.  This in turn seemed to put the actors at ease, allowing them to transmit their love of performing back to the audience.  The result was a wonderfully warm and comforting evening’s entertainment.

The concept of the production was broadly determined by the need to find room for the large cast.  The various scenes were realised through projections – essentially stylised and amusing cartoon representations of the settings.  These were sometimes augmented by key properties such as treasure chests or the ship’s wheel on the Hispaniola.  The crazy visual gags and slapstick routines were properly resourced with the obligatory cream pies and real eggs (for demonstration purposes only), while the fake eggs were beaten in an original way by being batted into the audience using a frying pan.  The battery chicken was imaginatively realised with the aid of a remote-control car, while the haunted grotto was conjured up with flown gauze ghosts and dancers in skeleton costumes.

The co-directors were evidently steeped in pantomime tradition, and they packed everything that you could wish for into a show which nevertheless retained a sensible running time of a little over two and a half hours.  There were plenty of inclusive and generally well-executed company dances; there were less-than-flattering references to local towns and businesses – what have the good folk of Haddenham done to upset the residents of Thame?; and there were interludes in front of the tabs, including an amusing alternative version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas”.

This show was essentially everything that a local pantomime should be.  As I sit at my computer, it’s the emotional warmth of the show that sticks in the mind, the sense of a community of friends and neighbours coming together for a seasonal celebration that embraces everyone, from young children experiencing pantomime for the first time to proud grandparents who have been coming to the Players’ Theatre for years.  There was something here for everyone, and nothing to offend.  Except, perhaps, if you live in Haddenham

© NODA CIO.  All rights reserved.

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.