Emma Boor’s Wild Boor Ideas theatre company, and its annual pantomime, has become something of an Oxford institution. My family first went three years ago (for Elves and the Shoemaker), and it was the first play our three-year old had managed to sit through 'til the end. In fact, he loved it, and has been a fan ever since. Emma’s style is extremely accessible for little ones, and all her hallmarks - audience participation, gloriously deranged puppets and plenty of raspberries - are in full effect tonight!
This year, the creative team is a veritable supergroup of Oxford theatre: appearing alongside Emma is master storyteller Amantha Edmead (whose recent play, SOLD, about the life of Mary Prince, recently won Best Ensemble at the Edinburgh fringe), and Ceri Ashcroft of Toy Lights, with former creative director of Pegasus theatre, Euton Daley, in the director’s chair.
As the title suggests, the play is an update of Dickens’ classic moral fable, with a critique of yuletide consumerism augmenting the original warning against untrammelled greed. Wilhelmina Scrooge is the owner-manager of ‘Scroogeways’ supermarket, whose staff includes her sister Emily Scratchett. The kind-hearted but slightly hapless Scratchett invites a homeless former shop assistant, Mary Christmas, into the shop to keep warm and give her a few tips on her work, but of course the boss does not approve. Later that day - Christmas Eve - the heartless Scrooge sacks her entire staff, to be replaced by a state-of-the-art self-service till named the Tillatron 3000. The till starts going haywire, however, before warning her that she will be visited by three bargain products, who will show her her past, present and future.
It’s a clever plot, but never over the heads of the children, who are kept engaged throughout with plenty of visual gags, jokes and general silliness. And there is much to appeal to adult sensibilities as well, including, for example, a medley of eighties songs with lyrics about groceries, such as 'Wake Me Up Before You Cocoa', 'Is It Brie You’re Looking For?', and - the audience's favourite - 'Poppadom Preach'. And the puppets - all sixteen of them - are fantastic, my favourite being the supercilious French onion: “laisse les manger du gateau!,” he scoffs, on learning the fate of Scrooge’s sacked staff. Audience members are provided with shakers to wave about during the songs, and the songs are all signed by the actors. The intimacy of the venue means that you are always close to the action, especially when Tiny Ted, the plastic bag dog, goes for a wander!
When asked what he thought of the play, my six-year old Louis said, “It was good, because it had a cute doggy in it. And because there was talking food. And because the doggy licked me!”. The moral seemed to have sunk in too, summed up by Louis as: “Never be mean. And don’t care about money, because it doesn’t do you any good.” It was a hit, too, with his little brother Duke, who has just turned three. A perfect introduction to pantomime!