Why choose to perform Puss in Boots...?
- ben60467
- Apr 6
- 3 min read
Updated: 7 days ago
Puss in Boots is one of my favourite panto stories. A few years ago, the title was less popular, but it is now one of my most performed pantomime scripts - and the cat is at the heart of it!
Wearing the boots empowers Puss to speak, so that you immediately have two cats for the price of one – a talking cat and a mime cat – and two great parts!
Animals are wonderful in pantomime – and they become very different when they can speak, so this separation of the character with and without boots really is a game changer.
On the subject of animals in panto, Puss in Boots was the first story to alert me to the surefire comic potential of rabbits - the story requires rabbits, so it seemed essential to have fun with them and in my version of Puss in Boots, there are three great rabbit cameo roles... Mr Fluffy, Mr Wigglenose and Mr Cheekycottonbottom.
These three gents are Killer Rabbits, dressed like Bouncers, but with fluffy white tails and floppy ears. They always go down brilliantly with audiences – and are great fun for three performers who don’t want too much to do but want some big laughs whilst they are on.
Of course, there are some excellent roles for humans too! Comedic double acts are at the heart of pantomime and my Puss in Boots panto script has four of them.
Jasper and Jethro, the Miller’s Sons are one of my favourite knockabout double acts and they are twinned with the equally funny Betty and Babs, the (much brainier) girls they are in love with.
The garrulous dame, Queen Wendy the Won’t, enjoys a great double act with her husband, the taciturn, King Wally the Once.
Anticipating King Wally’s every word, Queen Wendy speaks nearly all his lines for him and requires an actor of some authority in a real tour de force of a role. A great dame’s part.
By contrast, King Wally provides guaranteed laughs and a wonderful part for a talented comic actor who can never remember his lines. If only all roles could be like that!
The fourth pairing comprises the two fairies - the Good Fairy, Priscilla and her younger, rebellious sister, the Bad Fairy, Pernicia (aka Patricia.) With the additional tension of being sisters, both parts are great fun to play.
Pernicia also has a lot of laughs with the real villain of the piece, the Ogre Grimgrab. It’s great fun having an Ogre as, like the Giant in Jack and the Beanstalk, the role provides a completely different dynamic to all the other parts.
Grimgrab’s exhorting of Jasper and Jethro to abduct the Princess also gave me the chance to emulate a comic tongue twister routine that I’ve always admired – Danny Kaye’s “The pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle. The chalice from the palace has the brew that is true!” in The Court Jester.
My tongue twister runs along the lines of, “There’s a crown on the bedhead of the bedstead of the Princess – and there are knobs on the bedhead of the bedstead of the maid!” Needless to say, the abducting of the Princess doesn’t go quite according to plan…
Last but not least, of course, are the Principal Girl and Boy.
Frustrated with the constraints of royalty, Princess Esmerelda nearly always speaks first and thinks afterwards, whereas Jack, the Miller’s stepson is somewhat controlled by the faster thinking and morally less fastidious Puss, so is always slightly and endearingly on the back foot. They therefore make a very charming and contrasting pair.
I deliberately wrote Puss in Boots with the idea of creating lots of parts, so if you are looking for a large cast pantomime script, a fast-moving comedic romp and a very popular title – Puss in Boots could be the panto for you!