The Civic Theatre's first panto, Red Riding Hood, is written and directed by the redoubtable Val Fitzpatrick, who also plays The Dame, or Grannie Kelly to her/his audiences. Cognoscenti will know that this means making a virtue out of simplicity, and making the audience do half the work; no mean skill.
There is a familiar ring about much of the script and action, set in the village of Sleepy Hollow. A film producer arrives, and is about to cast Red Riding Hood as his star when Madame Live - evil, vile - takes umbrage and turns him into a wolf. But Granny and boy friend Billy save the day after much harmless merriment. Nothing to scare the kids here.
Embedded in the cavortings are a chorus of children of whom only a few can dance, but who all give it their best shot. Jan Widger, as Red, looks and sounds good, as does Violet Dunne's baddie. Puppet Soky, from RTE's Den programme, puts in several appearances, there is a Ronan Keating lookalike and a Gay (Pat Kenny's a plonker) Byrne. And, of course, Mr Fitzpatrick steals the show for comedy and energy.
It is the mixture as before, down to the finger-clickin' good final numbers, and I have no quarrel with that.
By Gerry Colgan
To mid-January. Booking at 01-4627477
