The English Tradition of Pantomime

The tradition of having a winter pantomime to entertain the whole family is quintessentially English, along with Morris Dancing and Yorkshire pudding. The formula of pantomime, nicknamed ‘panto’, comprises slapstick comedy, audience participation and local references within the framework of a famous fairytale. Popular choices are Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Puss in Boots, Aladdin, Pinocchio — you get the idea — take a well-known children’s story and ham it up with plenty of spoofs and gags.
Unbeknownst to many people in Muscat, every year the Ras al Hamra Amateur Dramatic Society put on a full-length pantomime production, usually in December though not always, with actors whose day jobs involve oil wells and rock analysis rather than professional entertainment. But the result is usually equal to any end-of-the-pier show or stand-up comedy. This year the group chose an English version of Frank Baum’s much-loved, ‘The Wizard of Oz’ by Peter Nuttall of Lazybee scripts, “The Wicked Witches of Oz.” Under the superb expertise of Director, Rosie Reddy, with assistance from Rishika Singh, the show had four two-hour performances last weekend — quite a challenging feat for the youngsters involved.
Rosie — herself appearing in witchy black — welcomed the audience in the Cinema Hall at the Ras al Hamra Social Club to the annual panto, reminding them to participate vocally with hisses and boos, cheers and calls of, “She’s behind you!” and, “Oh no it isn’t!” or any opportunity to heckle the Baddie. My favourite was the recycling of ‘Sally the Camel’ from last year’s pantomime, ‘The Voyages of Sinbad’, and to add insult to injury the audience was encouraged to shout, “Wrong Panto” each time she appeared. She was actually played by Mike Reddy and Andy Hill, dancing in a fine golden costume. I loved that Lion, performed brilliantly with exaggerated feline mannerisms by Siju Nambiar, was actually Aslan from C S Lewis’s, ‘The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe’, accidently fallen into the wrong panto, but by the end he had so much fun with his new-found friends he didn’t want to return to Narnia!
The star-role of Dorothy was played by Sia Jyoti with such confidence and flair that she put Judy Garland in the shadow. Her desire to sing the iconic Harold Arlen 1939 ballad, “Somewhere over the rainbow” made her constantly break into song with spontaneously appropriate lyrics, until Aunty Em was bound to warn her ‘there may be copyright issues!’
Dutch-born Marianne Staal made a sterling impact in this bizarre English medium, and rose to the challenge of being a bossy American chicken- farmer, Em, in her first appearance in a panto. Another first-timer who excelled in treading the boards when encouraged was Yoke Ping Lam as nasty neighbour, Edna, who was just dying to take Toto to a canine compound in Barka(!).
Everybody loves Dorothy’s dog Toto, and by association all youngsters want to play him. To share the spoils, the role was split between the fast-talking, fast-moving, Ella Salt in Act 1, and to keep the gender-balance, Sonny Morgan stepped into the doggy costume and make-up in Act 2.
When Dorothy and Toto are whisked by the twister to the Emerald City and Yellow Brick Road in the Forest (costumes, set design and painting organised impressively by members of the Cast) they encounter the evil green Wicked Witch of the East, played superbly — maybe her best role so far — by RAHADS regular, Denise Sanders (watch out, you may be getting type-cast) and the over-sized, bearded Australian, Crispin Garden-Webster squeezed into an unlikely dress with red wig as the Pantomime Dame, Good Witch Momby. However, those adults were upstaged by the inimitable and versatile young Sara Bogunovic as a composite Munchkin character, Munchy, with a deliberately faux attempt at an Ozy accent (get it?). There were also five diminutive munchkin siblings in the cast, playing chorus members, stage hands and continuity announcers.
The main characters, good enough for a Fancy Dress Party, were cleverly mirrored by teenaged shadows: Timothy Mann (Tim Mann) was played by Sia’s sister, Gauri Jyoti, Tia Lynch played a frazzle-haired Pierre Crow (ouch) and best of all, Athina Rumpf as an ambitious (say it quickly:) Howard Lee Lyon.
They say nepotism begins at home, and pantomime casts are no exception: Toto’s Dad, Dave Salt, played Scarecrow with amazing intelligence considering he was a sandwich-short-of-a-picnic and was seeking a brain from the Wizard of Oz. The real Tin Man was played with aplomb and a silver face by budding thespian, Radit Setiawan, the island Chief in last year’s shipwreck, and now going for gold.
Keeping things truly international, it was great to see Persian talent flying without carpets. The Wizard himself was played regally behind a full beard by Amir Heidari, his fickle manservant and smartphone-nerd-on-wheels by Kourosh Mardani while HIS Dad was up in the lighting box, along with RAHADS tech veteran, Rini Klaassen.
If you add bags of sweets being hurled at the audience, an X-Factor Worst-Witch competition, a quest to free Dorothy AND Wizard, and a Wicked Witch who was really good underneath it all after all into the burlesque, you end up with an excellent panto production 2018 right here in Muscat (Oh, no you don’t!).

Georgina Benison.

Photo credit: John Reddy