Italy doesn’t have a Christmas pantomime tradition as in Britain (although pantomime did develop from a combination of Italian ‘Commedia dell’arte’ merging with the English courtly masque and the Victorian music hall) but it does have two great entertainment features for the festal season. One of them is the ‘cinepanettone’ or ‘Panettone’ (an Italian Christmas cake) comedy movie which is stereotypically centred on the festal season’s holidays of rich and inept Italians who find themselves in exotic places. Countries chosen include Egypt (‘Natale sul Nilo’ 2002) and India ‘(Natale in India’ 2003). I suppose the nearest UK equivalent would be the ‘Carry on’ films and, like that immortal series, cinepanettone is to be taken not so much with a pinch of salt but with a glass of prosecco and a bevy of, preferably Italian-speaking friends to come along for the fun and explain the (usually very bad) jokes.
Rather more admirable is the Italian Christmas musical comedy based on traditional fairy tales, just as in most English pantos. Bagni di Lucca’s Red Cross association, a voluntary body which runs the ambulance service and administers first and emergency aid throughout our area, has built up a fabulous reputation for putting together fun dramatic presentations of a very high standard.
Their production this year was no exception. If you were in Bagni di Lucca and missed the Red Cross performance of ‘Aladdin’ last January 6th then you missed a lot of really well-put together amateur (and often not so amateur) dramatics. The main actors were superb.
Kokko, aka Roberto Lucchesi the ‘Ted Bovis’ (remember ‘Hi-de-Hi’?) of Bagni di Lucca’s entertainment scene, both presented and acted the old sultan whose daughter finally marries the canny lamp man, Aladdin.
All other main characters were very well done and the genie was truly a genius!
Choreography was exemplary. The four houris (girls inhabiting the Muslim paradise) were appropriately seductive and the two young girls from a local rhythmic acrobatic team were stunning, reminding me of the same kind of young acrobats I encountered on my journey through Mongolia a few years ago.
Of course, the highlight of Aladdin was the appearance of ‘La Befana’, the old white witch who rides around on her broomstick and distributes all things nice to good children and coal to the baddies. As the traditional verse goes:
La Befana vien di notte
con le scarpe tutte rotte
con le toppe alla sottana
Viva, viva la Befana!
(La Befana comes by night
with completely broken shoes
with her skirt all in patches
long live La Befana!)
It’s quite fantastic that a voluntary body should find the time to form a voluntary theatrical company and give us a fabulous free show! Well done Croce Rossa!
PS Here are a few snippets from the show:
https://www.youtube.com/edit?o=U&video_id=kUnHz65mP8E
PS For previous Bagni di Lucca Red Cross christmas shows see:
