Written and Directed by Johnny McKnight. Tron Theatre. WORLD PREMIERE. 27 November – 6th January 2019.
***** “a force of nature… a joy to watch… a complete spectacle… a fresh and unique pantomime with a great big heart that’ll bring joy to all ages” BROADWAY WORLD
**** “Few writers create working class theatre with such an ear for the cadences of its language, a generosity of spirit, and its limitations and problems than the unstoppable force of nature, Johnny McKnight. Mammy Goose is an unabashed joy from start to finish.” THE LIST
**** “spins through the auditorium like a cross between a motor-mouthed drag queen and a very colourful tornado … comic mayhem… a celebration of gay marriage so deliciously strident it would put DUP leader Arlene Foster off her Christmas dinner.” SUNDAY HERALD
**** “Johnny McKnight, a one-man powerhouse sees (panto) as as popular theatre at its most subversive. He loves the trappings – the lurid spectacle, the call-and-response, the dance routines and, above all, the comedy – but tied in with this voracious appetite for pop-culture is a razor-sharp sense of an ever-changing world.”
**** “The level of energy and cloud on display here is more than sufficient to power a dozen festive shows.” THE TIMES
Mammy Goose always thought she was going to be somebody, though life hasn’t quite worked out like that. Her dreams of glittering Holyrood parties hob-knobbing with the Scottish elite like The Krankies and Sean Batty have gone down the pan. The frying pan. Her life is less Debbie McGhee more McGhee’s the Bakers. She’s working her fingers to the bone in that wee cafe of hers with her only friend in the world is Lucy – a talking Goose (and you can imagine the stares in street walking arm-in-arm with a 6ft goose).
And as for her son Jack, well his heid is in the clouds right now. You see he’s in love, and considering leaving the family business. Mammy Goose’s life is a mess, until a mysterious stranger makes her an offer – the chance to be young again. The chance to start over. And all she has to do is trade in her pet goose….
Will Mammy Goose choose eternal youth over friendship and love (seems to have worked out okay for Kim Kardashian, hasn’t it)? Will Jack and his new pal Will dare to climb that hill together and see what’s up there? Will Lucy the Goosey taste better with BBQ or plum sauce?
johnny mcknight - writer and director 