The shipping forecast burbling from the sleepy lighthouse keeper Boo’s transistor radio at the start of Macrobert Arts Centre’s Santa’s Sleigh Light Keeper predicts “occasionally moderate” conditions, but the show is anything but.

In fact, it is frequently festive and continually chucklesome. Or as Santa’s little helper number 24602 aka Bailey says of a jar of stardust which helps illuminate her passage to the top of the lighthouse, “It makes your heart sing.”

Inspired by an original story from director Julie Ellen and associate director Daniel Livingston, writer and composer Andy McGregor has crafted a charming and gentle tale which through a sprinkling of audience interaction, slapstick and song is perfectly pitched for the target audience of tots and their “big helpers” with Adam Greene and Kay McAllister alternating the roles of the talkative Bailey and taciturn Boo to a tee.

Whereas Scrappy-Doo relies upon puppy power to defeat his adversaries, Bailey adopts a much more collaborative and eco-friendly approach by combining people and pedal power to navigate her way through a series of computer game-style challenges so that she can ascend the lighthouse and fuel Santa’s guiding light home. Failure to do so will result in Christmas being cancelled – forever.

Overwhelmed and under-prepared, Bailey does a Gerrard Kelly and enlists the help of some “pals” whose hands shoot north like a troupe of Saturday Night Fever backing dancers. A key is prised Excalibur-like from a block of ice courtesy of a collective blow of hot air. A crocodile-infested pit is traversed thanks to a trio of trapeze artists. And a choral rendition of Jingle Bells reveals a secret passage in a musical library.

Though, as in many a panto, the biggest laughs are generated by call-and-response routines which invite comical deviations from the script. “How shall I wake him?” ponders Bailey in reference to the snoring Boo. To which an angelic voice pipes up from the dark, “Tickle him!” Tee-hees and thumbs-up all round!

Peter Callaghan
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