Sean Burnett Dugdale-Martin
The annual Circa Theatre Pantomime is a consistent good time and a worthy watch to celebrate the last leg of the year. Written by Simon Leary and Gavin Rutherford, with Rutherford also taking the mantle of directing. This pantomime marks 20 years since the first at Circa and it’s jam-packed with double-entendre, local jokes, incredible costuming (shoutout to Sheila Horton, assisted by Sharon Johnstone and Maysie Pyatt), as well as song and dance medleys you’ll no doubt know and love (unless you’re the under 10s who got on stage and didn’t know Hot To Go by Chappell Roan).
Something I have consistently enjoyed about the Circa pantomimes, of the ones I’ve seen, is their borrowing and blending of multiple intellectual properties to create a nebulous, magical world. In this, the Leary & Rutherford interpretation of Sleeping Beauty, there is a Doctor Who spin, as you could probably tell from the marketing imagery! Jackson Burling is our awkward and lawful-good classic hero archetype: Justin Time, who accompanies Jthan Morgan’s time travelling fairy in a Portal-Zero-Zero (or Portal-ooh!). These two find themselves entangled with Rachel McSweeney’s naive and playful Aurora Australis and her two immortal fairy fathers, Leary’s Dawn and Kathleen Burns’ Day. The dangerous plot against Aurora is by Bronwyn Turei’s Dusk, a deliciously envious witch of a fairy who puts a curse on a one year old because she wasn’t invited to it’s birthday. Rounding out the cast is Natasha McAllister who plays Cuddles the velociraptor. Yep, there’s a velociraptor.
A highlight of any good pantomime is its dame. In recent years the tradition of having a man playing the female dame, in our case Gavin Rutherford, has passed on to Jthan Morgan a takatāpui drag performer. For those who are unaware of the international pantomime political landscape: there were murmurings coming from the English pantomime scene that this tradition was inherently transphobic: having a man play a woman for laughs. With a head screwed on straight, and a pinch of foresight, it seemed like a no-brainer to instead replace the man with a trans performer and thus the role was passed to Morgan who has done nothing except absolutely excel in the role. She constantly brings her over-the-top diva antics (so well honed from being the number tahi Tīwha!) into every scene and from moment to moment can flitter between warm and funny to razor sharp in the blink of an eye.
Having said that, if any of you reading this reckon that PC has gone mad and that it’s not that serious or snowflakes! or don’t we have bigger things to worry about?? (even though this one is probably true) then I’m afraid I’m not that interested in your opinions.
Anyways! One of the most hilarious parts of the show was watching it dawn on the cast that the children that they gathered on stage in the second half (which is a pantomime tradition so that the kiddoes can dance on stage and get a picture with the cast) weren’t familiar with the chosen song to dance to. During their time on stage the cast played the aforementioned very viral song from Chappell Roan which has a notorious and memorable tiktok dance associated with it. However, an aspiration that I can only imagine was to choose a dance/song that kids know, seems to have backfired (perhaps these kids were too young for Hot To Go?). Hilariously, the kids stood stunned, watching the performers do all the moves. I did see one kid do the macarena so perhaps we shouldn’t be so hasty to try out a currently relevant song and instead play it safe with the classics?
I’m such a huge fan of these pantomimes. This year, it felt like there were more moments where the audience got to yell at performers (a craving I have during most live theatre shows). Props must be given to the elaborate set, climbing up from the painted floor to the rigging that evolved during the performance. Design props to Ian Harman, painting and construction was Emma Katene and Kate Anderson.
Classic family fun for all ages, get yourselves along as soon as you can. Tickets here.