PANTOMIME
The Pie-Eyed Piper of Hamilton
Oran Mor, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
FOUR STARS
"Five more years..." goes the mischievous opening chorus, as Oran Mor enters the Pantosphere and the current season of A Play, a Pie and a Pint ends on the now-traditional summer slice of cross-dressed mayhem, satirical spoofery and barbed skites at political personnages. So saying - enter Jimmy Chisholm, in a towsy platinum wig, as the Mayor of CityState. All similarities to London and Boris are, of course, purely intentional as is the metaphorical plot-line of a city so plagued by guzzling, greedy rats that it takes a drunken piper from a run-down Scottish town to eradicate the corruption. Like in Browning's original poem, however, our piper is then cheated by the Mayor because their treaty hadn't been rat-i-fied (ouch!). Faster than you can say "hey Jimmy!", the mayor discovers his mistake.
Dave Anderson, with Gary McNair as his scripting sidekick, twists the old cautionary tale into a nod-cum-head-butt at post-Referendum tussles over who governs what. As the song says: "The piper has to be paid." Farcical politicking aside, the rude'n'ribald spirit of panto is allowed to run riot, with Chisholm (forever "in flagrante" with nae breeks, just snuggly yellow drawers) heading up a bold new panto-tastic team at Oran Mor. Paul James Corrigan dames it magnificently not once but twice - massively gallus as the piper's Ma, but bootiliciously pouty and and all come-on as the Mayor's daughter in a teensy body-con frock. Annie Grace and Kirstin McLean both cross-dress deftly and daftly: Grace gives it laldy as the piper, McLean is the creepy-conniving Cyril who advises Chisholm's artful dodger. It's sassy, it's saucy and hoots mon! the final singalong is plaid for laughs as well.
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