MAZELTOV! JEWISH PANTO STRIKES AGAIN
Goldie Frocks, rightful heiress to an East End schmutter workshop, has been enslaved by the evil Calvin Brine, whose behemoth of too-small clothes for annoyingly thin people has driven the bears who run the Circus Oy Vay away from their East End homes to Pinchley Road. Brine is plotting to capture the youngest of the dynasty as he prepares for his bear-mitzvah. and turn him into a coat. Big Mama Bear in her big frocks – Debbie Chazen no less – and gallant little Goldie in her skirt of remnants must foil this plan. They are assisted by the pearly-jacketed Morris Bloom and his conjuring tricks before the curtain (all of which work). Morris is the magician Ian Saville, one of the oldest performers to make a panto debut this year.
As seasoned panto-goers know, the correct way to being back harmony and justice is to pur new words to a lot of songs – from Fairytale of New York to Reviewing the Situation from Oliver, and including Mein Herr from Cabaret (mein Bear, obvs) . You must also make a lot of horrifying puns (“I am beartrayed! Says Chazen the overbear-ing matriarch). Be sure to woo and taunt the young audience and make them yell, ensure you have a custard-pie fight and a zombie behind-you moment (the zombie is a retired accountant). Oh, and make sure your characters confuse a kippah with a kipper
For this is Jewish panto, a newfledged genre: cue sly cultural references , like the fact that “No Jewish news is good news”, and that every page of the Jewish Chronicle is full of Volvos for sale. Keep the schmutter jokes going, with a tailoring plot and props and magic tricks with basting thread. Explain that the Rabbi Schlomo Drake, a squawking puppet, is “one of those orthoducks” . Ensure that Mama’s final costume is adorned with giant pickles and a suggestive gherkin, bagels on head. . Recruit a truly thundering bass villain. – ..in this case the admirable Simon Yadoo, joining the cast between two five-star seasons as Yerucham in of “What we talk about..etc” at rhe Marylebone theatre (scroll down for review). His big number in the second half is magnificent.
Oh, and throw some chocolate gelt coins around and have a lively onstage band to keep the songs rolling. The band’s terrific: Josh Middleton on accordion , Daniel Gouly on clarinet ,Christina Borgenstierna on the Ukrainian klezmer drum “Klezmerize” every song with vigour, the finale blending a celebratory bar-mitzvah dance with “Maybe its because I’m a Londoner’ The 300-odd small children at the first schools matinee clapped and stamped.
If any community’s small children needed reassurance of good over evil right now, it’s this one, at a time when morons throw stones at school buses. Last year, in he shocked aftermath of the Hamas murders and during the differently-shocking upswing of shaming UK antisemitism, JW3 commissioned and ran the first ever Jewish pantomime, complete wih Big Bad Pig. I wondered at the time why it was the first such joyful cultural melding: what with the Jewish showbiz pedigree, dame-worthy matriarchy and tradition of sharp selfmocking wit and decoration, panto feels entirely natural. And it was just what was needed, in its defiant frivolity and heart.
So here we are again, once more the book written by Nick Cassenbaum, directed this time by Abigail Anderson: a new tradition born in an angry century. I saw the first, slightly raggedy schools matinee but its very raggediness made it warmer. And oh yes, there are some jokes for naughty adults in the evenings, which mercifully went over six rows of little heads. Every circus zoo, after all, boasts a beaver. And there had to be an Alan Sugar joke, Oh yes there did. Chanukah Sameach!
box office jw3.org.uk to 5 Jan
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