We had a jolly good time – oh yes we did!
Our Jolly guests and the guests at Mindful in Gillingham had free reign to let their imaginations run wild in this season of Jolly Instant Pantos across Dorset.
Helped by Liz Reeve and our lovely founder and manager Sarah Rampton, who are both practitioners of ‘Instant Theatre’ created by RG Gregory a Community Artist based in Dorset. Greg set up a theatre company called ‘Word And Action’ and this is where Liz and Sarah learnt their skills. Instant Theatre enables the audience to create and act in their own unique play in the space of an hour. The audience have a great time, as there are no ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’ ideas, and all participation is voluntary.
Jolly Shaftesbury had Cinderella getting thrown out of ‘The Two Brewers’ pub after a fight with her ‘Ugly Sister’ who also happened to be her supervisor at Tesco’s. Cinders went from a humble trolley collector to marrying a handsome Prince who just happened to drop in to Tesco to buy a scratchcard.
In Jolly Blandford, Jack sold his cow to Snow White who was also a Wizard with long white hair. Jack’s mum, Gloria, had sent him out to sell the cow to get money to pay their enormous electric bill and was furious with him for trading the cow for five green beans, but Jack’s luck changed when the sun came out and grew the beanstalk up to the Giant’s Castle.
In Jolly Wimborne Museum, Jack was a professional beanstalk climber – but when he ate the beans for lunch – there were explosive consequences!
In Gillingham Mindful, Friar Tuck ended up joining Robin Hood and his Merry men and a cafetière became a weapon of choice in defeating bad King John and saving Dusty Miller from losing his head.
Jolly Wimborne St Giles had poor Cinderella scrubbing the stone floor of an ice cream castle with a toothbrush – but she did find her Prince in the end!
There is still more fun to come as Jolly West Moors have their Panto to look forward to. There will be more Instant Theatre with Liz and Sarah in the summer months.
“‘What a great morning!! I’d say that was a huge success. Well done and thank you both we will certainly do that again.”
