Following hard on Malcolm Galea's Porn the Musical (see review below), with its relatively restrained comic treatment of porn, we have now had Revolt's Puss in Boots at the MADC Clubrooms in Santa Venera.
Steve Hili, who has written the book and directed the show, has thrown restraint to the winds, basing himself on the belief; the coarser, the better.
His Dame (whose name in the show I shall refrain from repeating) is, as is customary in panto, played in drag. Instead of wearing a series of elaborate and all-enveloping costumes, however, this one wears a skimpy bikini.
While all panto dames show a liking for sex, this Dame (P.J. Xerxen) not only lives for it but also lives by it, being a tart.
This Dame’s language and her thinking would undoubtedly go down well in Testaferrata Street.
The audience, to the delight of most of it, is often reminded of the smell emanating from the Dame's panties when she loses them after a professional encounter with no less a person than the King (Sean Briffa).
The King becomes so enamoured of this smell that, like the Prince in Cinderella, he does not rest until he possesses the Dame as his bride.
Xerxen dominates the show. He has a powerful stage personality which he used most effectively on the first night, making a tall, young man from the audience go on stage again and again in order to carry out his behests.
Naomi Said plays Puss so charmingly that she would often have fitted into a normal Christmas panto.
Her relationship with the Dame's son Joseph (an outsize and very likeable Joe Depasquale, who shows how in panto it is not always regular good looks that win the girl) shows her shrewdness and ability to think fast.
Joseph is unsure of his sexual identity, even if at the end he wins the hand of the pretty Princess (Mandy Randon) whose virginal good looks are belied by her public confession at the close and looks quite pleased by this.
His doubts , however, have not quite disappeared. So the book kindly gives him and the princess a third member of the marriage, Philip Leone Ganado's bad, but not so bad, witch's henchman.
This henchman is avowedly gay and so can be useful if Joseph finds the going with the princess not quite to his liking.
Steffi Thake is one of the best-looking Baddies I have seen in panto. However, her strident voice (occasionally not perfectly comprehensible) and violent temper render her formidable.
I was amused to see how she ordered around her henchman Leone Ganado, an actor who has made his name in dramatic roles, but here shows he has a feeling for broad comedy too.
In panto, the audience is accustomed to hearing the cast make fun of politicians and other public figures and Hili’s book pokes some good fun at the current government whose pronouncements and actions so often conflict strongly.
There are many laugh lines, but few truly witty lines. There is practically no singing and certainly no dancing. Like Porn the Musical, this one ends with an invitation not to be good to each other but to go home and carry on there in the style suggested by the show.
Keeping sets and costumes to a minimum, Hili keeps the show going effortlessly with a constant interaction between the Dame and the audience in the intimate auditorium.