Reading around for Panto stuff again, and remembering Marx’s fascination with Robinsonades:
Robinson Crusoe crops up a number of times, either as a title or as a character. Of course Steve Shaw’s Robinson Crusoe takes its title from the novel by Daniel Defoe, but since the pantomime tradition does not leave much room for solitary castaways, the plot voyages a long way from the original, and Crusoe’s desert island is populated by a tribe of islanders and an eccentric gorilla. James Barry’s approach to the same classic is to assume that Crusoe distorted his account somewhat, hence James’s small cast version of the story is Robinson Crusoe – the Truth!
