So, Saturday night I reacquainted myself with pantomime after a gap of sixty years or so.  I think the last panto I saw was Aladdin at the Alhambra in Bradford c.1965.  Well why not?  Much has changed and Canadian Stage’s Robin Hood; written by Matt Murray and directed by Mary-Francis Moore discards much that would once have been seen as de rigueur.  I guess much more fluid gender roles, general acceptance of same sex relationships and, maybe, less familiarity with the canonical stories means that what once seemed risqué now seems passé and absent a general idea of how the story should go there’s more freedom to experiment.

So in this Robin Hood, Robin is a young woman played by a young woman.  No pretence that the character is male.  And her love interest is a male playing a male, even if called Marion.  This Robin doesn’t hunt the king’s deer in Sherwood Forest or rob fat bishops.  She makes and sells hoodies.  King Richard isn’t away on crusade he’s having a hair transplant in Turkey.  He and his brother, the evil Prince John are the executive leadership of Glamazon; a pigeon mail order business that uses eunuchs for deliveries.  John’s evil plan is to drive all the small businesses trhat depend on Glamazon’s services to the wall and then build a manufacturing/distribution centre in High Park forest to replace them thus violating every tenet of internet business strategy that I was taught by MIT!

The snag is that the trees in the forest are too tough to be felled with available technology (it’s 1325… don’t ask me why 1325).  But somehow, despite not being able to make a decent axe or saw, John’s boffins can build a gold powered laser.  Robin, along with her nursemaid, Sparkle Bum (a genuine nod to the pantomime dame tradition), head off to John’s HQ at Casa Loma to try and stop this.  Along the way they pick up Friar Tuck (so called because he used to work in a fast food restaurant), Little John and Marion who is actually John’s nephew.  After various shenanigans Marion tricks his uncle into giving the gold back to the small business owners, High Park forest is saved, a spectral Richard puts Marion in charge and his first act is to sentence his uncle to ten years picking up dog poo in the forest.  They all live happily ever after except, of course, John.

There’ no lack of the traditional panto elements.  There are singalongs, scenes where the audience is expected to warn the good guys of looming danger, kids from the audience pulled into the action, sexual double entendres which the kids in the audience aren’t supposed to understand but probably do.  All this is fitted into a very modern vibe that owes more to music videos and recent Disney films than to music hall or commedia.  There are very energetic dance numbers and the music is a kind of generic post 80’s pop.  With lots of amplification a four piece instrumental ensemble can sound pretty impressive!

I was impressed by how some really good serious actors committed themselves to the panto thing.  Damien Atkins (De Profundis, Here Lies Henry) is a splendidly camp Prince John who managed to convey the kind of banal evil one associates with, say, Elon Musk rather than Captain Hook!  He does the proper villain thing with the audience, especially the kids, too.  Julia Pulo as Robin is a really good mover, sings nicely and is just every bit as engaging as a panto Principal Boy/Girl should be.  She also brings a really infectious energy to the show and interacts well with the audience.

Daniel Williston has the Dame thing pretty much down pat though in some ways one regrets this role didn’t go to some famous classical actor in the way that Ian McKellen has been used elsewhere.  Diego Matamoros perhaps?  But he’s good and, of course, he gets all the best double entendres; “I’ve seen some pretty big beavers but none that could handle that wood” for example.  Praneet Akilla as Marion is kind of a straight man here; playing off both John and Robin and he does it well.  Julius Sermonia and Eddie Glen as Little John and Friar Tuck work well together and are pretty funny.  The Ensemble plays, as one would expect, a range of characters and there’s some suitably goofy acting and real physicality and energy in the song and dance numbers.

The sets are colourful, the music is (surprisingly?) engaging and the stage craft is slick (and loud).  The blend of traditional and modern works pretty well and it obviously went down well with a very mixed audience.  It’s not entirely my thing but I enjoyed myself nevertheless.  And if anyone can explain the choice of 1325 please comment!

Robin Hood continues at the Winter Garden Theatre until January 4th.

Photo credits: Dahlia Katz