Zoom call show had me laughing and singing
The 2020 Perth Panto ‘Oh Yes We Are! A Quest for Long Lost Light and Laughter’is a unique hybrid that could not have been imagined a year ago.
It is on now at Perth Theatre until December 24, but not in the conventional sense as reporter Melanie Bonn found out...
COVID restrictions prevented the public being in the building for this year’s panto so huge inventiveness was called for to ensure the show connected.
Just because you were not ushered to a red velvet seat did not mean there was not a sense of occasion.
It was a Zoom experience where you couldn’t help feeling you had a part to play and that felt fun.
Some watching the panto prom on Saturday night turned down the sitting room lights and put disco projections on the ceiling. Others were cuddled up on the couch with popcorn and fizz.
Actor Barrie Hunter is synonymous with the nudges and gags of a great Perth pantomime, having been our Dame for more years than younger audience members can remember.
As well as taking a starring role on the four-hander, he wrote the script for this year’s production.
Hunter must have felt anxious it was all going to work. Whoever before wrote a theatre script for an invisible audience?
How do you feed off the laughs in an empty auditorium?
Panto is the people. Where is the fun if there are no kids to catch the sweets?
Did he do a good job?“Oh Yes He Did!”
The story he made up was an untested formula, conceived before a vaccine for coronavirus had given a glimmer of hope to the world this god awful gloom might not have to be forever. The script did not rely on the stock Christmas role call of characters like Aladdin or Sleeping Beauty.
Very daringly Oh Yes We Are! went somewhere novel and current: it was the story of experiencing “unprecedented times”.
It used a quest formula to tell a tale of the weak, the shy, the strong and the scared combining forces to a heart-warming conclusion.
It echoed society’s longing to find something reassuring and to do it together.
The action moved around, visiting backstage rooms, an imaginary forest and a darkened auditorium.
Helen Logan, Christina Gordon, Barrie Hunter and Ewan Somers handled the task of self-filming their lines live incredibly well.
Multiple screens, multiple views, done fresh for each performance – what a huge ask of the cast and production crew.
Oh Yes We Are! was endearing, cheering and unless you are a total Grinch, a singsong in your front room is well worth a try. The Horsecross Arts COVID
Christmas cracker had plenty of snap for young and old.
Working around this extraordinary year has been demanding and I would urge everyone out there not to let the task of joining a Zoom call put anybody off buying a ticket.
You might even spy a friend also having a great time in a sitting room near you.
Tickets cost £16 per device from www. horsecross.co.uk
Adding a touch of festive cheer to Perth city centre, a projected showcase of art by primary school pupils from around Perth and Kinross can be seen high on the big blank wall on Burt’s Vennel, just off Mill Street (Boots car park).
There are a collection of festive messages and animations in the space that usually shows the‘Meander’creative works projected onto the bare brick space.
The bright and cheery designs are on display from 4pm daily from now through to December 25 as part of The Big, Big Art Project.