Pantomime
Mother Goose
Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
TWO STARS
Forget any hint of spit and sawdust ?? Mother Goose??s circus is a vision of pale lemon frocks, smocks and pantaloons that look as if they??d stepped out of the pages of a Victorian picture-book about the Bolshoi ballet. The Big Top, too, is pastel pretty, with a live band neatly housed in an upper gallery. You??d want to run away to any circus that was as swish as the one Robin Peoples has designed for the final year BA Acting students who sing and dance, turn cartwheels and juggle in this oddly polite version of Alan McHugh??s Mother Goose.
Polite? Aren??t pantos meant to be a raucous, vulgar thumbing of the nose (and other parts) at the Establishment? Well, like the ugly sisters and Cinderella??s slipper, not every cast is a perfect fit for purposeful rudery and bish!bash!bosh! tomfoolery. As for singing out loud... the chorus do it with gusto, but not all of the main players are in tune with the pop songs that kids in the audience have off pat. Those kids, and their parents, seem to have a good time nonetheless. They boo at the swaggering devil in red, Diavolo (Lorn Macdonald) who has a fiendish cackle and a catchphrase ?? ??You??re all going DOWN!?? ?? to match. He also has a side-kick, but Rascalio is too inept to be evil. Hamish Riddle makes him a lovable numpty with a hint of the ridiculous wimp. What of Mother Goose? Nebli Basani??s Dame drags up a treat, even before the Lady Gaga transformation, but high camp needs low comedy, not just a deep voice. There??s effort galore on-stage, just not ??tip-top?? as the irritating Fairy Fortuna insists.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article