Old Mother Hubbard: A Western Pantomime Adventure -- Bermuda Musical & Dramatic Society -- City Hall Theatre -- December 10-19.

The traditional world of panto-land took a dramatic leap westward this year, when an obliging good fairy whipped Old Mother Hubbard and her kids off to the wide open prairies of the Wild West.

As usual, of course, there was a frequent blurring of geographical detail which ensured that a strong Bermudian flavour pervaded the proceedings -- and nobody in the packed audience was complaining about that.

This is the third time that director Jonathan Owen has travelled to the Island to produce this highly popular Christmas entertainment for the BMDS: a veteran of this genre himself on both sides of the professional footlights in the UK, he knows what works here, and how to get the best out of his cast. And, despite its long running time (why such a drawn-out story line?), this cast provided a happy and predictably wacky evening of entertainment: corny jokes and puns, helped along by the first-night audience who couldn't wait to hiss the villain, shout out dire warnings to the misfortune-prone Mrs. Hubbard and, whenever possible, indulge in a nice line of vocal argument ("oh no they didn't'').

Political jokes were as awkardly unfunny as usual, but mercifully sparse -- a bit of a surprise, that, bearing in mind the ammunition served up by all the thrills of November's General Election.

Despite the fact that this autumn has taken its toll on the Island's local theatre talent (the recent, huge production of`Les Mis' followed almost immediately by `Broadway in Bermuda'), Owen managed to find adequate heavyweights to carry the essential thrust of humour -- just as well, as the adult chorus was seriously depleted. It was fortunate too, that there was a strong children's chorus who stepped heroically into the breach -- even if, musically, they sounded as if they were trying out for the kids' chorus in `Oliver'.

Kelvin Hastings-Smith made his first foray into that most bizarre, British custom of gender swapping to play the luckless `Dame', and did so with winsome humour and plenty of aplomb; in fact, from the moment he first appeared, with a striking blonde hairdo topped off by a blue bonnet, bosom a-heaving beneath an electric pink shawl, he looked as if he had been flouncing about in skirts for years.

He was greatly helped by Geoff Yeomans, another highly gifted panto `natural', who played her son, the loveably naive Hughie. These two both possess that essential sense of comic timing and easily held the audience's attention with their mix of `pie in the face' brand of humour and verbal gymnastics. At the other end of the emotional scale, there was an excellent performance, too, from Marcus Staebler as the sneering, too cruel Matt Vinyl.

Somewhere in between, the knockabout idiocy of Phil Taylor and John Thomson worked in effective tandem to ensure that the laughs in this pantomime virtually never stopped. Providing the fairly thankless but apparently requisite romantic interest which forms the final wedge in this annual pantomimic feast, were Katherine Watts as daughter Polly and Devaune Ratteray as the handsome cowboy Tex Laramie.

Completing the main roles were Ray Moore as the lecherously incorrigible Old Tumbleweed, Annarita Marion as the Good Fairy, Debbie Mello as Little Deer and a fine cameo characterisation of a Bermuda Regiment Major (don't ask why Warwick Camp was within striding distance of the Grand Canyon) by Peter Profit.

Musical direction was shared by James Burn and Gaynor Gallant who provided some tuneful numbers (from such gems as `Annie Get Your Gun' and `Oklahoma'), and Elmer Midgett once again designed sets that evocatively conjured up the contrast of small-town Europe with the fiery, tepee and cactus-punctured deserts of the Wild West.

All in all, a production worthy of Bermuda's rich pantomime tradition.

PATRICIA CALNAN