Kampalaham

One of the funny things about living in Uganda is that I'm learning a lot about Europe. I've learned some Dutch, heard a lot of French politics, and yesterday I walked in on an odd British tradition.

A friend and I went to the weekly jam session at the National Theater, but for some reason the jam session had been canceled. We heard some music from inside and entered to discover a bunch of kids and a few adults on stage rehearsing some sort of show. We stuck around and discovered that it was essentially Robin Hood, Men in Tights, but adapted for Uganda -- we only saw the last few minutes, but the basic plot seemed to be that King Richard of Uganda had left the country to fight in the war in the north, and his wicked brother King John, ruling form Kampalaham, had taken over and was ruling dictatorially. Robin Hood, played by a young girl, had led the Merry Women on a rebellion. It was a musical, and the big final number was an adaptation of Walking on Sunshine, complete with breakdancing. Awesome.

After the show, we asked one of the actors what it was and, more importantly, when we could see the whole thing with costumes. He explained that it was in fact a pantomime, in what is apparently a grand British tradition of pantomimes.

A British pantomime is a little comedy, traditionally performed at Christmastime but not involving religion, that uses slapstick, music, satire, and audience participation. It tells a traditional story -- Robin Hood is a favorite, as are fairy tales. The (male) lead is usually played by a woman, and there's usually a man in drag (both present in this show). There's also usually an animal that features prominently in the show -- here, Robin killed the King's lion to save Maid Marion (I object strenuously to the pro-poaching theme of the pantomime).

Despite the anti-leonine themes in the show, it looks pretty funny. December fourth through thirteenth at the National Theater.