If twink (increasingly known as Adele King) spent 11 months of the year idle and plugged into Moneypoint, it's still hard to believe she could store the energy which carries her through this latest panto for its Olympia run.
It's just as well, because this year she even more than usually carries the show. For which she has mainly herself to blame. As writer and "creative producer" of Rockin' Hood, King has presented herself and a cast of many with too many flat passages, too few decent jokes and only fair-to-middling sets and costumes.
Saturday's first-night technical hitches didn't help, and director Brian Merriman needs to sort out the occasional collective chaos which sometimes translates as exuberance but more often gets stuck at chaos.
And yet there was Twink, her singing voice spared by the wonders of recording technology but her physical presence and audience-incitement devices very much switched on. (Unintentionally funny was the dissonance between her stage-Dub persona and the posher profile of the audience: when she roared "Howaya!" most of us thought the appropriate response was "Fine!").
And there, too, was Dustin, who had our six-year-old in stitches and her parents in traction with a succession of nasty insults and nastier farts - half the cast seemed to do little all night except wave their hands in front of their noses. The Turkey - still mourning for lost relations this Christmas - brought a thoroughly likeable vulgarity to the evening, abetted by some dirty-ish jokes and one vaguely S/M bit of choreography.
This pantomime remains a weathervane indicative of the latest winds of change which are blowing through Irish culture. The famed triplets number from The Band Wagon is (ill-)adapted as a nod to the kids' TV phenomenon Rug rats, for example. And, 10 years ago, who would have thought we'd see black actors (Peter Smith and Samantha Mumba) playing the romantic leads in a play like this?
It's a cinch to list this show's lapses; the fact that Des Allen and Damien Douglas, as sidekicks Dumb and Dumber, are the only other grown-up cast members to merit - just about - special mention is itself a mark of Rockin' Hood's lopsidedness, and some of the onstage children seem too young, including King's own five-year-old. However, the inevitable Riverdance scene was utterly stolen by the tiny and talented "Olive Hurley Kids" (plus our three-year-old dancing in the aisle) and in general this panto sends 'em home happy.
The prominent casting of the daughters of Bertie Ahern, Mick Lally and Brendan O'Carroll still looks like a stunt to get the recent Kenny Live spot, but it indirectly provided Saturday's hilarious highlight, as Dustin passed a brown envelope into the Taoiseach's box with a murmur about passports and planning permission.
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