Pretensions and her friends have something of a tradition of catching the W!LD RICE X’mas pantomime every year since 2005. W!ld Rice is a home-grown theatre company started by local impressario Ivan Heng in 2000 with the intention of creating a theatre culture on our desert island – they have a tradition of producing plays that challenge the status quo and current politics.

P always enjoys the X’mas panto because it’s incredibly politically-charged, yet usually manages to be very funny and rich in sexual innuendo as well, operating on several different levels for kids and adults like a good cartoon eg Shrek does. This year W!ld Rice had chosen to do Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, surely a theme ripe for…well, many things.

This is the first panto written by much lauded playwright Alfian Sa’at, and directed by local comedian Hossan Leong, a good partnership judging by the product.

Set in the plastic perfection of the Eternal Kingdom, a land where all the inhabitants are forced to go for plastic surgery to improve their looks at age 18, the panto pokes acerbic fun at a certain nation-state. The ruler of the Eternal Kingdom, the Queen (flaming, I think, played with verve by Sebastian Tan), is 85 years old and preserves her appearance of youth only with creams, potions and plastic surgery. She maintains her rule through an annual (rigged) beauty pageant, which was a huge laugh as all the contestants were drag queens representing various unlikely bits of Singapore. Miss Pedra Branca was most memorable for her lighthouse impersonation (don’t ask).

The step-daughter of the Queen is of course, Snow White (Elena Wang), who is rapidly reaching her 18th birthday when she has to go for her enhancement (the plastic surgery) and also becomes eligible to enter the pageant. Snow White, in her innocence and purity, enjoys feeding the animals (an illegal activity in the Kingdom) in the most deserted part of the land, Speaker’s Corner! She is soon spotted by Prince Charming (Dwayne Tan), a handsome young chap from a neighbouring Kingdom. However, Charming has to contend with Snow’s nanny (Celine Rosa Tan at top screech) who intends to keep her charge away from crocodiles of a particular stripe.

Every night, the Queen consults her Magic Mirror (Celine Rosa Tan again, in fine voice) and is dismayed to realise that her charge will soon take over her mantle. Determined to hold on to power at any cost (like certain aged politicians over here), the Queen commissions the Royal Plastic Surgeon to disfigure Snow during her enhancement. However, he cannot bring himself to commit the dastardly deed and instead banishes her to the Eternal Kingdom’s garbage dump, the Outer Limits, with Prince Charming following closely in her wake.

Amidst the garbage, Snow encounters her epononymous dwarfs, who are really the misfits of the Kingdom, including Dorky with 2 right feet, Lispy (its obvious), Hidey (who can sing but only from backstage), Bui bui (dialect for fat), Blondie (who is not dark-haired like the rest of the Kingdom), Jesse (a transvestite) and Weepy (possibly the only holdover from the original). Lots of mayhem and hilarious song and dance numbers ensue and the plot follows its usual trajectory to the mandatory happy ending.

P loved the localised jokes, especially Hidey’s back story – where she had to sing for the Queen’s birthday but was so ugly they had another girl lip-sync to her vocals (anybody remember the Olympics?). The Queen definitely had all the best lines, coming in at one point with a birthday cake for her(him?)self and pouting that an audience member didn’t know how to blow… She also got to regurgitate a few good speeches by a certain Minister. Even Prince Charming got into the act, wandering round the audience looking for Snow and worrying that he wouldn’t recognise her post-op, he stopped in front of a burly male and intoned “Please tell me you’re not Snow White!”

Elena Wang and Celine Rosa Tan definitely had the best vocals in the cast. Dwayne was fairly pleasant and Sebastian did a wonderful torch singer impersonation with his signature tune (I’d rather be the Queen of Diamonds, than the Queen of someone’s heart). The dwarfs and the rest of the ensemble were a little uneven, but hey, it’s a X’mas pantomime, the audience is usually in a forgiving mood.

Fabulous silly fun as always!

Recommended Links:

Artzine Singapore’s interview with Sebastian Tan

Artzine Singapore’s review of Snow White

ChannelnewsAsia Review (has link to video)