Pantomania!

The final poster

Well, the 2019 Capolettes Christmas panto-skit The Adventures of Snow White was a big hit with its (admittedly easy to please) audience on Tuesday, December 17 – despite the usual shambolic dress rehearsal the night before.

Alas, I don’t yet have any photos of the actual panto – when and if I do get some I’ll post them on this page in an update.  In the meantime, here are some pics of the dress rehearsal and the dinner itself…it was a great night with wonderful food… antipasto and plates and punch followed by  a buffet of baked salmon,  avocadoes stuffed with seafood, lamb, pork, turkey, ham and all sorts of interesting vegies and salads, followed by Rosie’s amazing chocolate daleks and Barbara’s Christmas pud, all served with cream and ice cream and brandy butter.  I can barely eat a mouthful today!

The wine flowed and those few of us who unwisely stayed to the last also polished off Terry’s lovely – and expensive – Glen Morangie!  We Caponians might be ageing, on average, but we still know how to have fun (though those of us who danced and sang Big Spender are paying for it this morning !  Who would have thought I could still kick that high?!  Who would be silly enough to even try it at my age and not realise there’d be a price to pay next day!  I just hope the same goes for the rest of the Seven Tarts!

Actually, several people have asked why this Snow White features an Uber driver and tarts instead of dwarves – whoops, vertically challenged persons!  Well, this is our Bernice’s take on Roald Dahl’s take on the original fairy story.  In OUR version the pubescent ( but amazingly precocious and independent) Snow White runs off to work for a household of seven reformed tarts after the Queen, her wicked stepmother, tries to have her killed by the huntsman.  Because, true to the Disney version, the Magic Mirror one day tells her that Snow White is prettier than the Queen herself.  Untrue to the Disney version is that Snow White then hitches a ride with an Uber driver into town to get a job with the tarts, who have a penchant for betting.  She steals the Magic Mirror and, while her father the King is counting his money and all his other possessions)  gets the Queen of Tarts (not to be confused with the Wicked Queen) to ask it the winner of the next race at Doomben.  The mirror obligingly provides the answer and Snow White and the tarts have a big win…and a big spend-up to follow.  The Wicked Queen is naturally furious and – Disney with a twist – takes the tarts a basket of apples poisoned with Round-up!  Snow-White and her surrogate mothers fall to the floor in their twitching death throes (I enjoyed that bit but getting up was hard!) but the fairy steps out of the mirror, reveals her true identity and revives them all.  Whereupon the narrator wonders whether some day Snow White’s prince will come…but he, she’s only twelve and says she and the tarts would rather stick to betting because you’re better off betting on a hose than on a man!  Whereupon entire cast sings and dances to the old song “Stewball was a Racehorse”!

Well, you ASKED me!

(And yes, I DO know that Round-up kills weeds, not people.  Trust me, I’m a horticulturist!)

The Bobfather at the dress rehearsal, with his Uber taxi ready to pick up the hitchhiking Snow White

Two old tarts – Rosie and Ellie waiting their turn to go on at the dress rehearsal.

Jackie, at 91 the oldest tart of us all but still able to kick up her legs – and her walking stick – when required!

As part of the final dress rehearsal audience Wolfie and Pam are obvously discussing the finer points of our performance – though actually Wolfie was supposed to be taking a video! He is SOOO easily distracted by a pretty woman!

Well tonight’s the night and I’m ready – but with two roles to play in the panto I’ve not got time to take photos, alas.

The dining room starts to fill up – Ellie to the forefront before she sneaks off to put on her tart’s costume

Renee (as the Magid Mirror Fairy), Brenda (as Snow White) and Bernice (director/naraator) take a well-earned rest at the end of the dress rehearsal.

The dining room begins to fill; Ellie to the forefront at our table before she sneaks off to put on her tart’s costume.

Barbara tries to light one of her Christmas puds

Meanwhile in the kitchen chefs Paul and Rosie are slaving away – Rosie still in her tart’s wig which she may make a habit of wearing from now on because it was such a hit with the audience!