A DOZEN years with Limerick Panto Society, RTE’s Emma O’Driscoll is all a-glow as she heads into a working Christmas with the enormous cast of ‘Goldilocks – The Circus Panto’.
Everything is novel in John Finn’s script, presenting the blonde heroine and her mum Mrs Headlocks (Tim Cusack as the perennial Dame) as entrepreneurs running a circus, to mixed fortune.
“The circus is going downhill,” Emma ’fesses up. “They have to find a circus act to turn things around and they hear about the three bears in the wood. This pantomime is not a love story… they go after the bears for their show”.
And meet foul and funny play, as music and choreography synchronise wittily to send in the clowns. Look forward to musical numbers from ‘Barnum’ and pop songs; Emma’s golden pipes will say ‘hello’ to at least one superstar scaling the charts.
“The level of work that goes into [our productions] is something that astounds me, and Tony Cusack as director is just brilliant. He has a fantastic eye for character”.
From Upper Carey’s Road originally, Emma travels the Dublin-Limerick axis for various projects. She has set up her own stage school Gemstars with her sister Georgina, operating out of Caherconlish Millennium Centre, Crecora NS and in January, Delta Retail Park.
While Emma found young fame in pop group Six, Georgina pursued childcare. Her “best bud” sister is duly proud of Georgina’s Special Merit in a BA in Applied Social Sciences in Social Care, winning the Brothers of Charity Limerick award for Overall Excellence.
Exciting too is this prospect of Goldilocks reinvented as a resourceful woman up against Madame de Farquotte (Laura Hunt), Bertie Bagem (Damian Shaw) and Seanie Shootem (James Corr).
Book for December 27 to January 3 on www.limetreetheatre.ie for laughs at matinée and evening panto; no show on December
