POTTED PIRATES

Dan and Jeff at the Cramphorn

22.02.09

Buccaneers swarmed over the whole building last Sunday. The Civic had CAODS' Broadway Pirates in for their technical run, while on the smaller stage the big screen Caribbean pirates with Dan and Jeff.

Fond memories of the Potted Potter last year [all seven book in seventy minutes] meant that expectations were high. And despite the early hour and the thin house, it was more of the same madcap fun, with parrots, eye-patches and peg-legs, not to mention Calico Jack Rackham and his two-timing lady pirates. Wicked as-libs, wacky repartee and wild improvisations kept all the ages in the audience awake and amused, and that was before we were dragooned into making like seagulls, sea-dogs and Captain Ahab [“Thar she blows!”].

Black Beard, Sir Francis Drake, Long John Silver all trod the boards [or walked the plank] as historical fact mingled with romantic fiction.

Jack Sparrow was on board too, as earnest Jeff and disruptive Dan took us through the movie trilogy in five minutes And they crammed into their matinee hour a pirate rap, the Spanish Armadageddon [we threw cannon balls, they threw chocolate doubloons], a quick-fire Treasure Island and a glorious Pirate Karaoke Megamix Finale.