The Tempest - The Pantaloons

With their trademark audience interaction, ad libbing, music, and, of course, Shakespeare, The Pantaloons took us to Prospero’s Isle of Wonder on Sunday 24^th August 2014, for The Tempest.

The evening was hosted by a very hard-working Ariel (Elliot Quinn), who stepped in and out of the action – playing the part of Ariel within the play, but also chatting to the audience, providing the music, and even reading out the stage directions. Would it more accurately have been named ‘Ariel’s Isle of Wonder’?

But while Ariel worked hard, it was clearly Prospero (Martin Gibbons) who held the power. There was a scene at the end where puppets were used to represent some of the characters. This was explained by Ariel as being a way of getting round the problem of having a small cast, but it also showed how the characters were puppets that Prospero had been manipulating throughout the piece.

There was also a great moment, probably only at this particular venue (Smallhythe Place), where Prospero’s words echoed magnificently back around the space. It felt as though the isle full of noises was reverberating with the power of Prospero’s speech.

And speaking of the isle full of noises, that famous speech was brought vividly to life by Thomas Judd’s Caliban. And of course a reference to its use in the Olympic opening ceremony was thrown in for good measure.

You can always rely on The Pantaloons to pick up on the cultural reference points that an audience brings with them. It might be a direct allusion to other interpretations of The Tempest – or it might be a reference to the vineyard down the road from the venue, or an ad lib about how a biologist in the audience looks like Steve Irwin. (Both of these featured in the performance at Smallhythe Place).

The bit that probably made me chuckle the most was not really Shakespeare at all: Stefano (Nicky Diss) tells Trinculo (Martin Gibbons) to be quiet – or, in Shakespearian language, ‘mum’ – and Trinculo responds with the ready retort ‘Your mum’.

That deliberate clash of the archaic and the up-to-date is one of the things that makes The Pantaloons so much fun. It was the same in their History of Britain, which I saw earlier in the summer, and which revelled in mixing the historical with the contemporary. And I dare say it will be the same in their take on Bleak House, which I am very much looking forward to seeing in the autumn.