Classic Dumas adventure to play out at BTC’s Black Box Theatre

GOLDEN Square-headquartered Bendigo Theatre Company returns afresh for its first production of the new year with a pantomime-style performance of Alexandre Dumas’s 1844 swashbuckling adventure The Three Musketeers.

Adapted for the stage and directed by BTC committee member Thomas Moore, audiences can look forward to “hilarious dames, stunning costumes, familiar songs and all the quirky stylised fun you expect from a BTC pantomime.”

Moore, who has been involved with the company under various guises for two decades, said the classic tale is “a fantastic story to turn into a panto”.

“I find it has really good, rich, fertile material for adaptation,” he said. “It’s silly, it’s funny, it’s farcical.

“It’s exciting and it has very obvious and very clear, distinct characters – they’re these big caricatures with a lot of interesting history.”

Moore described the production as community focused and collaborative.

“There’s been jokes and other sorts of visual gags and prop inclusions and all sorts of things that the cast have brought into the process as well,” he said.

“(As a result) it’s very much turned out to be thrilling and funny for children, but still has impressive performances and jokes that the adults can laugh along with.

“It’s very bright and colourful and poignant and romantic and swashbuckling – there’s all sorts of things that kids and adults alike would enjoy.

“It’s definitely going to be a fun night out no matter who you are.”

Catch The Three Musketeers at the Patricia Lyon Black Box Theatre in Allingham Street, Golden Square, between Thursday 8 and Sunday 18 January.

Session times and tickets are available at TryBooking.