Big Top, Northern Meeting Park, Inverness, until 7 January 2006

Eden Court's Big Top situated in the Northern Meeting Park.

NOISY PLACES, pantomimes. The actors shout, the kids shout, the music blares – it’s an in-your-face experience with a vengeance, and this production of ‘Sinbad’ is no exception.

The non-availability of the theatre this year (and next) has driven Eden Court and their regular panto production outfit, TEAM Entertainments, into the adjacent Northern Meeting Park. The huge red and white big top currently occupying that space is hired from Ganday, whose specialities include ‘Spirit of the Horse’ and the less wholesome ‘Ladyboys of Bangkok’.

The temporary venue works well, and moreover, its warm, so if you fear that attending the panto means freezing in an icy tent, forget it. If there is a complaint, it lies in the fact that the seats are decidedly ungenerous – fine for the kiddies, not so hot for Mum and Dad, unless they happen to very svelte. And they are hard – bringing a cushion wouldn’t be a bad plan, especially given that this is a longish show.

The technicalities of the structure impose few limitations on the ingenuity of the production team, although I suspect that had this been in the theatre as usual, there would have been rather more in the way of swashbuckling swinging around on ropes and such like seaman-ish capers.

That said, it is a colourful and fast-moving show in the TEAM tradition, with a story that can be followed coherently by even the younger members of the audience, rather than just a series of excuses for jokes.

There are plenty of those, of course, some fairly near the limits of the acceptable for a young audience, and lots of singing, dancing, lavish costumes and stage sets, the obligatory sprinkling of current pop hits (the back-from-the-dead ‘Show Me The Way to Amarillo’ and James Blunt’s ‘You’re Beautiful’), films (including a ‘King Kong’ reference), and television shows (Catherine Tait, ‘Little Britain’ – forget the watershed, the kids knew exactly where this was sourced).

The obligatory happy resolution, with everybody pairing up at the end and the villain getting his comeuppance, is duly delivered as the dashing Sinbad (Lee Scott) rescues his Princess (Lucia Rovardi) from her evil abductor (the excellent Gavin Kean).

Iain Gouck held nothing back as the Dame, playing Sinbad’s sex-obsessed mother, with Derek McGhee as Sinbad’s manic wee brother, Mustafa Wee (subtle or what?), and Nicola Jo Cully as Tamara, the Princess’s sidekick. Broadcaster Tich McCooey gets more relaxed in his roles each year he does the show, and the usual collection of dancers – from young professionals to local schoolkids – gave their all for the cause.

© George MacKay, 2005