AustLit

A wicked witch schemes with demons to bring about the downfall of Little Red Riding Hood. She begins the nefarious plan by casting a spell that brings the little girl into disgrace at school and she is expelled. Her parents pack her off to her grandmother's. It is there that she meets the wolf in disguise.

The plot 'departs from the Arabian Nights tale as freely as the plots of most pantomimes do from their fairy book origins,' records the Argus, and deals instead

'with a voyage made by Sinbad to present a famous diamond to the Sultan of Serindip. A group of conspirators, including Steal, the arch villain and the inevitable Old Man of the Sea, seek to thwart him, and a storm is raised (providing the opportunity for a realistic stage setting), but after several vicissitudes, [Sinbad] triumphs over his foes, and wins the heart of the Sultan's daughter, the Princess Zoe' (23 December 1918, p.8).

Songs written for, or adapted into, the narrative included 'Cats on the Tiles', 'Nautical Captain Brown', 'The Ship of Love', 'Here Come the Anzacs', 'Flossie the Flapper', 'Dame of the Veils', 'Kiss Me', 'Knit, Knit', 'Dame of the Minchinbury', 'I'll Throw a Ring Around You', and two ballets: 'The Shell' and 'Butterfly'. The Argus reports that one un-named ballet, described as a 'Ju-jitsu dance with Apache elements', was 'a rather strained intrusion.' The critic went so far as to suggest that 'worked up, say, as an island dance scene [it] might possible be jammed in to advantage' (23 December 1918, p.8).

The Bunyip was originally a sketch for five people, written in 1908 by Ella Airlie, a young Ballarat-born actress/composer who also worked on the variety stage as a pianist and singer. Following a season at Perth's Melrose Theatre around March 1916, Airlie invited the Fullers to consider the work as a revusical, but they deemed it unsuitable, since it lacked a strong romantic angle. Benjamin Fuller was nevertheless attracted to its strong Australian flavour; later that year, he gave the go ahead for it to be re-worked by Airlie and director Nat Phillips, as the company's first-ever pantomime extravaganza.

Employing a cast of over 250 performers, the story concerns the evil King of the Bush Gnomes, who has cast a spell on Princess Wattleblossum, changing her into a fearsome bunyip. The spell includes the provision that if anyone speaks a kind word to the now-awful creature, she will be restored to her original form for twenty-four hours. She eventually regains her true identity after various incidents. The evil king is killed in a raging bush fire just as the princess is about to return to her hideous shape, and so she is able to remain in fairy form. The huge popularity that had been accorded to Phillips and Roy Rene when they debuted as Stiffy and Mo at Sydney's Princess Theatre earlier in the year saw their characters introduced as a specialty act in several scenes.

The sixteen scenic depictions by the Fullers' head scenic artist, Rege Robins, included 'The Great Bush Fire', 'The Big Corroboree', 'The Palace of the Kangaroo', and 'The Beautiful Jenolan Caves'.

The Bunyip was originally a sketch for five people, written in 1908 by Ella Airlie, a young Ballarat-born actress/composer who also worked on the variety stage as a pianist and singer. Following a season at Perth's Melrose Theatre around March 1916, Airlie invited the Fullers to consider the work as a musical comedy, but they deemed it unsuitable, since it lacked a strong romantic angle. Benjamin Fuller was nevertheless attracted to its strong Australian flavour and later that year he gave the go ahead for it to be re-worked by Airlie and director Nat Phillips as the company's first-ever pantomime extravaganza.