Theatre
Robin Hood and the Babes in the Wood
Manoel Theatre

The festive season may have drawn to a close but it certainly ended on a very positive note, with an FM Theatre panto at the Manoel Theatre, which embodied all the traditional pantomime elements incredibly faithfully, while adding a twist of the contemporary to its winning formula.

A script combining the plotline of the much-loved Disney version of Robin Hood with that of the Babes in the Wood was written by Edward Mercieca and brought to life by a mysterious artistic director, under the pseudonym Jupes Stomach.

Creating the right mood and setting for panto is always a crucial part of the final look and styling of the production and Marco Bartolo’s picture-book sets coupled with Chris Gatt’s empathic light design complemented the vibrant colour palette used by Denise Mulholland and Louie Noir in their costume design, with hair and wigs provided by Michael and Guy.

The piece was framed by the proscenium at the Manoel to look rather like a brighter, bolder version of a series of illustrated tableaux and was visually stimulating, drawing you towards the details which made it much more cohesive.

If visual cohesion made the piece more aesthetically pleasing, the chorus’ well-executed dances, choreographed by Francesco Nicodeme, and the cast’s excellent renditions of reimagined popular songs – under vocal coach Cathy Lawlor’s training and Kris Spiteri’s musical direction – meant that sharp, clear diction and tightly executed ensemble pieces supported the main cast very well.

The role of principal boy, Robin Hood, was given, again following traditional practices, to a girl – Maxine Aquilina, who embodied the ideal of the man in tights and a feathered cap incredibly well. She found a strong equal in principal girl, Sarah Mercieca’s Maid Marian, who is a courtier at the palace, helping the Dame, Nurse Bambolina, played brilliantly by Edward Mercieca, to run the palace and look after the abandoned babes, Cher (Franky Attard) and Lyke (Mark Ciantar), King Richard’s apparently orphaned children.

FM Productions have indeed outdone themselves in producing a great holiday production which went down very well with young and old alike

The babes are in the care of their usurper aunt, the evil witch-Queen Pif Scriha (Tiziana Calleja), who employs the Sheriff of Hawn Mawn Xejn (Stephen Oliver) and his two bumbling hench girls, Marelli (Michaela Farrugia) and Madoffi (LisaMifsud), to collect taxes from the villagers and generally treat them meanly, because they can.

Wondering minstrel Alana Dale (Antonella Mifsud) acts as narrator and opened the show with tuneful gusto, recounting to the audience what the villagers and our heroes are experiencing. She is also part of the ‘goodies’ troupe and joins Robin, Marian – disguised as Will Scarlet by the Fairy Hollandaise (Victoria Hubers) – and the Merry Men on a journey into the woods to rescue the babes and defeat the evil queen. The Merry Men consisted of the brusque Big Qilla (Renato Dimech), the camp Little John (Marco Calleja Vassallo) and the gluttonous Friar Tuck (Franco Sciberras).

Stephen Oliver as the evil Sheriff of Hawn Mawn Xejn, with his hench girls Michaela Farrugia and Lisa Mifsud.

The great thing about this panto was that it struck just the right balance between political humour, slapstick mayhem, send-ups of popular culture and good old storytelling.

From Oliver’s incredibly good Sheriff, whose tap dance routine with Farrugia and Mifsud’s Marelli and Madoffi included a final on a wrecking ball (showing Miley Cyrus how it should be done), these were baddies we love to hate because they were just so very likeable; to the sweet Hubers’s clear statement against racism, criticising the local attitude towards immigrants by saying that as a Dutch fairy, she too is an immigrant but doesn’t get any stick because she’s white and blonde.

Aquilina’s Robin and Mercieca’s outspoken and independent Marian had great singing voices and came across as strong and confident on stage, challenging Calleja’s incredibly haughty but fun, and secretly chavvy, evil Queen. Mercieca’s Nurse Bambolina was hilarious and on top form as she bustled her ample bosom into everybody’s business, especially the sheriff’s whom she fancied in spite of his caustic temperament and ridiculously funny quotations all misattributed to Shakespeare but taken from Frozen to Back Street Boys and Freddie Portelli lyrics.

FM Productions have indeed outdone themselves in producing a great holiday production which went down well with young and old alike. With the fairy cycle-flying like ET and Robin and Marian also flying around thanks to a bit of magic, to chasing away dinosaurs and escaping out of a supermarket shopping bag, this panto was zany, full of heart and delightfully raucous from start to song-sheet: hitting a sure bullseye.