Panto-time

It's finally that time of year again when even a theatre critic can abandon all his reserve and propriety and holler away at the top of his lungs in the stalls of the resplendent Manoel Theatre. Forget about biblical parallelisms with the hawkers at the temple - pantomime has all that is necessary to break away from the traditional mould of stage performance. I went to watch MADC's Pirates of the Mediterranean fully prepared to take audience participation seriously.

Naturally, I sat in the stalls. They are the only proper place to sit during panto - the closer to the stage, the better. All the better that is, to catch sweets, get squirted with water and threatened with gooey stuff during the slapstick scene; while wondering, with a mixture of dread and amused anticipation, whether you will be the lucky man whom the Dame will choose to go up on stage.

I am very pleased to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this year's panto which benefited from some highly creative direction. The script was, very surprisingly, clean. It is refreshing to see that funny can still be done without resorting to being overly vulgar and that many traditional panto elements have been re-introduced. This is something that MADC have consciously decided to do, as both director Nanette Brimmer and scriptwriter Edward Mercieca emphasised in the programme. And thus we've had the return of the principal boy played by a female with shapely legs in tights: this year's turn fell upon Chiara Hyzler, who made a very good job of it too. Her adventurous Jim Hawkins-Crusoe was as brave and sensible a thrill-seeker as his "super gorgeous" mama' Dame Kalafrana Hawkins-Crusoe would let him. At last a wo-man who's not afraid of showing off her curvy Maltese ass-ets to their worst advantage. Calli, as she likes to be called is a ball of technicolor mayhem, whose wigs change faster than the excuses which our lovely politicians come up with after each of their multi-blunders. Her outrageously funny costumes are a delight to see and are a credit to the costume designer and wardrobe team at MADC. Mr Mercieca has always made a hilarious dame and this year was no exception. His witty comic timing and the ability to ad-lib when the circumstances required it ensured that he bagged laughs by the dozen. Mr Mercieca was sure to include many political jibes in his dialogue, while weaving into the script very strong messages in favour of the protection of our environment and promoting healthy eating habits by pitting two rival tribes against each other: the cannibals, led by King Burger Kapuljat and his witch doctor Greasy McFries who are overcome by the vegables, led by Chief Pitkali and Witch Doctor Qara Bali Hai.

Given the last name of the principal boy and his larger-than-life mama, it's not difficult to imagine what's going on. Pirates of the Mediterranean is a mixture of pirate and sea-faring pantos; a bit like Robinson Crusoe and Treasure Island shaken on the rocks with a splash of The Little Mermaid and a Mediterranean flavour. The adventurous Jim goes overboard and is saved by mermaid princess Ariel. They fall for each other but the path to happiness is not a smooth one for our heroes - binding magical pacts, family feuds, tribal rivalry, marauding pirates and of course everyone's after the treasure! Chase scenes were abundant, both on sea and on land, requiring many different scene changes ably executed by the all important stage crew. The sets, designed by Harry Borg and constructed by Lino Mallia were terrific. My ultimate favourite scene was a dream of lighting, coupled with the use of a translucent, shimmery gauze scrim, revealing an ethereal underwater scene when Jim goes overboard.

This is where Ms Brimmer played the ace up her skilful directorial sleeve by engaging the services of Kirby's Flying Ballets, a worldrenowned British company established 109 years ago. Nicholas Smith, one of their experts, set up and operated the rigging equipment which this "rescue scene" required. In it, the little mermaid, played by Jo Caruana, comes across an unconscious Jim sinking slowly to the bottom and pulls him back towards the surface. The two silent, drifting figures accompanied only by atmospheric music, made this scene the most magical of the show - a big thumbs-up to all involved!

Two other scenes which stood out were the ones which involved a great solo performance by Pia Zammit as this year's baddie with an evil laugh: sea-enchantress, Skoda Octavia and the one in which sea-fairies Guppy, played by Elaine Camilleri and Frumpet, played by Coryse Borg, aided by a host of chorus girls dressed as pearls and oysters warn Ariel the mermaid to Forget About the Boy. Ms Zammit's solo was a funny and very well sung number entitled Whatever Happened To My Part?

which is deliberately deprecating and selfconsciously poking fun at the MADC, the Manoel and Ms Zammit herself, referring to many in-house jokes. Ms Camilleri, Ms Borg and Ms Caruana performed a terrifically entertaining jazz number with all the flapper-girl style and 1930s cabaret dance moves - great voices, very good choreography and stunning costumes all round. This year's chorus was a particularly good.

One of panto's usual downfalls is that the ensemble pieces are hardly ever intelligible, but I was very pleasantly surprised to hear and understand the lyrics generally clearly. I suppose it helped that quite a few faces in the chorus were veteran Voices choir members.

The cast was further plumped up by several wacky characters like the side-kick goodies Poppa and Pruwa, played by David Ellul Mercer and Rachel Darmanin Demajo respectively and the baddies Captain Silver Longjohns, played by John Marinelli and his stupid side-kick Bog Roll, played by Katherine Brown as well as Ralph Mangion's Dottor Paul E. Klinikk and Renato Dimech's King Neptune, all of whom gave good performances.

I was also extremely pleased that the children in the kiddies' participation game were given book tokens as gifts, which will hopefully even out the balance of all the useless technological gizmos they said they got for Christmas. If there are any tickets left available, make sure you go and watch it because Pirates of the Mediterranean is a seasonal must-see and runs until January 13.