‘Quare’ goings-on at record-breaking Christmas panto
Avril Lakes as Goldlocks
THIS year’s Christmas pantomime at Carlow’s Visual arts centre proved to be the venue’s highest-selling show in recent years, with over 2,300 tickets sold for its seven-performance run.
ran from Wednesday to Sunday, 17-21 December, with evening performances and weekend matinées.
“It’s our earliest-selling show ever. We sold it out about six weeks ago,” said writer and director Robert Ó Néill, an English teacher at the Gaelscoil.
The production has been the highest-selling act at Visual for the last number of years, according to Mr Ó Néill, who established the annual panto tradition in 2011.
“We set up in 2011 because there was just nothing like this in Carlow that had lots of production value. I’ve been writing and directing since 2012,” he explained.
This year’s show featured professional sets, including a large LED screen. “The production costs this year have been huge, but people love it. There’s no reason in a location like Carlow that we can’t bring a decent standard of production to a show,” Mr Ó Néill said.
The director noted that the panto has established a loyal following over the years. “People love it every year and they come back. At this stage, we’ve kind of established a reputation – they look forward to the similar characters as an archetype.”
Mr Ó Néill was joined by assistant director and choreographer Tracy Rea and musical director and choreographer Katie Conlan.
The show tells the story of a Christmas circus arriving in Carlow town with the three ‘quare’ bears as its star act. When the ringmaster (played by Jack Lawlor Mason) hosts a Lady Lovely Locks competition, Goldilocks (played by Avril Lakes) takes part and seeks advice from the three bears on how to be a good performer.
A lovely lesson of acceptance runs throughout the production.
“Goldilocks is a bit awkward and she ends up going to the three quare bears for advice,” Mr Ó Néill explained. “She realises that some people like their porridge too hot, some people like their porridge too cold, some just in the middle, and whatever people like it’s okay; everyone should be who they want to be and not compete with each other.”
The director said the moral of the story resonates with young audiences.
“I love seeing the innocence of kids and I love that they’re all answering back this Mammy character (played by Kayla Kehoe) saying, ‘yeah, we shouldn’t bully anyone. We should be nice to everyone.’ We should let everyone be who they want to be. It’s so heartening to see kids engage in that.”
Despite the show’s success, the production process remains intensive. The cast and crew put the show together in just eight or nine rehearsals on Sunday mornings in Tinryland, fitting the work around their day jobs.
Mr Ó Néill, who writes all the scripts himself, said local knowledge is key to the panto’s appeal.
“I love writing about Carlow. ChatGPT could never write a panto because you need to know the nuances of local turns of phrase to create a narrative around a roughly fractured fairytale,” he explained.
