A slice of stories, songs, and slapstick

HAVING served the first slice earlier this spring, the Bard in Buninyong’s actors are set to stage the second half of their telling of Norman Lindsay’s The Magic Pudding.

Pudnapped will be performed in the garden of the Buninyong Information Centre five times this Saturday 2 December.

Director, Susan Pilbeam, said the show is full of stories, songs, and slapstick.

“In the second slice, the pudding thieves are successful at napping the pudding,” she said. “The friends are playing detective, trying to find the pudding thieves and the pudding.

“There’s a fire, lots of chasing around, there’s characters dressing up and pretending they’re other people.

“It’s all standard mayhem as they try and work it all out. The pudding being chased, and chasing people, is a lot of fun.”

Pilbeam said the cast and crew have enjoyed creating the fire scene, without having any real fire, and playing around with different costumes.

“We’ve got a lot of characters that just appear in one scene, like parrots and echidnas, and we have one new person in this show who’s playing all these extraneous characters,” she said.

The play will run for about 20 minutes, brought to life by a cast of seven performers, and is part of the broader Christmas in Buninyong campaign led by members of Buninyong Community Events.

“Markets and shows are on over the weekend, starting on Friday, and for kids, there’s other activities around the town, like Spot the Elves,” Pilbeam said.

Catch Pudnapped at 11am, 12pm, 1pm, 2pm, or 3pm next to De Soza Park playground, behind 408 Warrenheip Street in Buninyong.