Pinocchio Pantomime Script Spotlight
The panto with no strings attached!
Our Pinocchio pantomime script ends Act Two inside a whale, which is not something many panto scripts can say. Getting there takes the company through a carpentry workshop, a schoolhouse, a Circus of Wonders staffed by half-human, half-donkey performers, and that’s all before ending up in the belly of a whale. Dame Geppetto runs the workshop with an inexhaustible supply of wood puns and a growing flirtation with the Mayor. The villain is Fairy Solid, sibling to the good fairy, Fairy Liquid, which turns the usual fairy-and-villain arrangement into a family rivalry running the length of the show.
Synopsis
In the town of Pantoland, Dame Geppetto is a lonely carpenter with a talent for making things and a wish for a child of her own. When Fairy Liquid grants that wish and brings her wooden puppet Pinocchio to life, everything seems wonderful, right up until Fairy Solid, Pinocchio's nose for trouble and the lure of the Circus of Wonders start to complicate matters.
Pinocchio must learn to tell the truth, resist temptation, and find his way back to Geppetto before Fairy Solid gets what he's after. It involves a fox, a cat, a ringmaster and a whole load of Sea-Monsters.
Have a whale of a time with this script!
Straight from the Script
Fairy Liquid corners Fairy Solid into making a promise, exploiting a fairy technicality:
Fairy Liquid: 'But I am looking for a promise, because fairies always tell the truth, oh yes they do!'
Fairy Solid: (Unwillingly) ‘Oh yes they do!'
Fairy Liquid: ‘See, you can't say it!’
Fairy Solid: (Crossly) ‘Oh no I can't!’
Casting Pinocchio: Who this script suits
At 10 principal characters and nine supporting roles, Pinocchio sits in our medium cast scripts and carries more named supporting work than anything else we publish. The settings do a lot for you: town square, schoolhouse, circus and sea give real variety in staging and costume, and the Circus of Wonders in particular lets the Ensemble do something properly theatrical. The cast flexes too, since Horace, Charlie and Sandy at the circus can be played by as few or as many performers as you have, and the schoolchildren and sea creatures add depth where you need it. It is one of our unusual pantomime scripts, so it also gives a society something specific to say about why this production is worth seeing.
Those nine supporting roles are worth listing, because a name in the programme matters more to a member than a line in a crowd. The Ringmaster runs the Circus of Wonders. Horace, Charlie and Sandy are the half-donkeys who work there. And Ben, Jack, Hilda, Sylvia and Wendy are the schoolchildren, who get a classroom scene with jokes written for them rather than reactions handed out from the Ensemble.
Ronnie is the part to watch out for. He arrives with a vendor’s tray and delivers a monologue assembled almost entirely from chocolate bars, and it is one of the moments groups write to us about afterwards.
Three effects need solving before you get anywhere near a rehearsal room, and the script tells you how to do all three. Geppetto builds Pinocchio’s hands at either end of a long workbench, coming up through small trapdoors, and they sit far enough apart that two performers may be easier than one. Those same hands then help Fairy Liquid run a card trick with somebody from the audience, with a trick deck suggested and the Mayor or Ronnie offered as a substitute if working with a stranger is not practical. And the nose grows twice in the schoolhouse, achieved with a wooden ruler and then a broom handle pushed in from the wings behind Pinocchio’s head, where the audience cannot see the join.
Six full sets carry all of that, and the Fairy Hideout is not one of them, since all four of its scenes play in front of the tabs.
If the circus is the part that appeals, our Goldilocks and the Three Bears is set in one from the first scene to the last, and also works well for larger groups, especially those with talent packed Ensembles. With 13 principal characters and three supporting roles and lots of circus action, it may well be ‘just right’ for you too!
Pinocchio Reviews
‘Pinocchio is a wooden wonderland of witticisms that guarantees laughter!’
Farnham Herald
‘We had a wonderful run. Near sell-out shows with lots of fun and laughs.’
Aberdyfi Players
‘I love the chocolate bar monologue. Very witty and clever.’
The Workshop Players
Request your free Perusal Script
Nine supporting roles is a lot of people to give a proper name to, and the reason to read this one is to see how they are used. Request a free Perusal Script and the script will be sent over, or visit the Pinocchio script page for the character list and running time. Our home page has the rest of the site, and the All Scripts page has the full catalogue.