Fun for the young

Christmas is very much a children's holiday and undoubtedly, one of the pleasures of parenthood is seeing your children enjoying themselves. Carting them around to different activities and shows is unfortunately, the not-so-pleasurable task which precedes their heart-warming cries of childish delight. I couldn't help thinking about this when I went to watch Curtain Raiser's Christmas show In Search of the Missing Reindeer at St James Cavalier with a young relative in tow. Having arrived there, I was met by the sight of tens of young couples joking with their offspring and indulging their hopes of meeting Father Christmas; climbing up the stairs to the round theatre. I could see that these people had, in their short time as parents, become experts in the art of make-believe. They seemed to have caught that marvellously infective bug called Christmas spirit in large doses from their excited children.

Before the show began, two of the characters, elves played by Roberta Debono and Abigail Williams, rounded up the children and gave them a brief overview of who the main characters were and which cheers and boos they should call out. It really did get the children into the right frame of mind and by the time the show started, they were eagerly anticipating a rollicking time. And a rollicking time was exactly what they got. The driving force behind Curtain Raiser, Patrick Vella, who scripted, directed and even starred in the show itself, certainly seems to know what children like. The set, designed by James Schembri was certainly an eye-catching one - part comic cartoon, part Disneyesque and extremely bright, proving Baudrillard's notions of our expectation to see simulacra presented as the real thing. There was no doubt in the children's minds that this was the real deal: Santa's Workshop at the North Pole. You've got to hand it to these people - they really do everything very professionally. Dorothy Ebejer's costumes were quite stunning and tied in very well with the image of a story-book illustration which the whole show was trying to achieve. A live band, led by Abigail Brown, gave it its final and very important oomph, since the story depended very heavily on a number of popular and well-loved song and dance routines, ranging from Christmas carols to feel-good game-songs and a couple of original tunes, which were a collaboration between Ms Brown and Mr Vella. The show proved to be aimed mainly at young children. The three- to nine-year age range loved it but I suspect that the more street-wise 10s and teens might have begun to feel just a little out of place, especially in the group activity parts when the whole audience was asked to interact with the characters. This, in itself was an excellent idea, but it felt rather as though I had suddenly fallen onto Sesame Street or into one of Dora the Explorer's adventures.

The plot itself was a very straightforward one. The villainous Jack Frost, played with great gusto by Mr Vella, kidnaps Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer with two aims in mind - as a plan to foil Christmas and as the main course of his gourmet Christmas meal. Tyrone Grima's bumbling but loveable Father Christmas and his loyal elves enlist the help of his story-book friends to find his trusty friend and save Christmas. Possibly, of all the characters in the show, Mr Grima's personable Father Christmas with a rich voice and an accent as plummy as Christmas pudding, was my favourite. He played the man in red with a sensitivity which brought together all the best qualities attributed to him over the years from traditional kindness and good cheer to technological savviness - he communicates with the villain via e-mail. Comedy was an important vehicle for the play's main themes which took up an anti-bullying stance and the promise that even the bad can be befriended and become good: all you need is the right attitude and the will to try. Singing helps, of course, as did the programme/songbook which the elves encouraged us to use copiously.

Jack Frost is the biggest bully in the North Pole, with an obnoxious attitude to boot and all of the other characters gang up to save Christmas, including the cold-hearted Snow Queen. The Snow Queen, a tall and imposing woman in flowing ice-white robes, is played by Ruth Farrugia, who does an excellent job while performing on stilts. She chooses to confront Frost on her own and ends up his captive, sharing a cell with the overly loquacious Rudolph, played by Graziella Galea Pirotta, who gives a good comic performance. Rudolph shows the Snow Queen that she too can learn to be happy, in the same way that Keith Borg's inept and pompous super-hero Bratman must learn to be happy with the way he is, even if his supposed super-powers always seem to malfunction. Bratman is an "Elvis the King" type of character, with a rock'n'roll song and a hairstyle to match and Borg brings much levity to the performance by deliberately hamming his character's part. Coupled with performances by the super-cheerful and highly motivated elves, the characters invited the audience to sing along and generally have fun in a way which is usually brought on only by large quantities of E-food colouring and helium. Ms Williams and Ms Debono are to be admired for their energetic and cheerful performances.

A host of life-size character puppets came to life thanks to Daryl Ebejer, who played the Snowman, gave Rudolph his voice and appeared as a slightly confused penguin; while Marcelle Bonnici played the silent Gingerbread Man. As much as Mr Ebejer was fun when portraying the Snowman and giving Ms Galea Pirotta's Rudolph his voice, I wasn't convinced at all by the appearance of the penguin in the storyline.

It was too unconnected with the rest of the story and had slightly more than a hint of tokenism towards Happy Feet since the whole aim of the scene was to get all the children to dance. Karmenu Serracino's Father Time and Mireille Mifsud's Mother Goose, whose characters appear towards the end and help bring about the resolution of the story, were solid, if very brief performances.

All in all Curtain Raiser gave a very visually pleasing and stimulating performance marred only by a pet hate of mine - unnecessary Americanisms and American accents. Children are children, not kids, although some do behave like the latter; and Father Christmas is precisely that - not "Santa Claus". The diction was clear and the singing well pitched however and the great light effects in the scenes with falling snow were absolutely stunning. The children certainly enjoyed the show and I'm sure that their parents did too.