Daniel Williston, Julia Pulo & the cast of Robin Hood: A Very Merry Family Musical | Photo by Dahlia Katz
It’s panto season! A beloved fixture of the Toronto holiday theatre scene, this is the second year of Canadian Stage taking the tradition over from Ross Petty. Once again, the feisty Julia Pulo is the lead in this gender-swapped Robin Hood: A Very Merry Family Musical.
In a campy, medieval fantasy version of Toronto, Robin is a plucky small business owner (“Robin’s Hoods”), an overly controlling perfectionist who makes and sells hoodies. Her brick and mortar shop is getting swallowed up by the insatiable Glamazon, whose new CEO, Prince John (oh, I have more to say about Damien Atkins!), the story’s big baddie, has an evil scheme to get himself rich at the expense of pretty much everyone else.
This plot heavily features much-appreciated left-wing talking points and Matt Murray fills his script with plenty of anti-corporate-hegemony sentiment as the scenario unfolds. The importance of an accepted support system is another theme here as Robin’s arc allows her to recognize she can’t, and should pressure herself to, achieve everything on her own.
Atkins’ entrances are accompanied by the dropping of heraldic “Boo” flags, but they’re hardly necessary. The moment he appears, the audience knows what to do. He has a boo-worthy persona if ever there was one. Channelling some of Catherine O’Hara’s Moira Rose here, he sports a distinct accent you can’t quite place because it comes from that internal region, y’know?—pretension! When called out by an audience member for his strange pronunciation, his assertive declaration that “it’s fancier!” was an astute bit of improv.
My favourite comedic episode—and I wonder just how much of this is scripted or ad-libbed—is a bit with one of the ensemble guards (an endearing Kyle Brown trying hard yet failing to retain composure) in which he tries to gather info by bribing him with a stale piece of cookie from his pocket. (You had to be there.)
Daniel Williston‘s Sparkle Bum is our drag side-kick this year. In addition to the expected risqué quips for adults, a comic feature of this cartoonishly intrepid nurse maid to Robin is his deep voice which emerges at key moments. Particularly goofy is a gag were he does a slo-mo speech recitation of her last line whenever someone expresses a baffled “what?”
Perennial panto fixture Eddie Glen plays Friar Tuck here, one half of a reformed thieving duo—alongside Julius Sermonia’s Little John, an endearing pair—enlisted by Robin and Sparkle Bum in their quest to foil Prince John’s wicked plan and restore wealth to the struggling business he’s exploited. The repentant villain henchmen here is also the love interest!—Praneet Akilla’s Marion, Prince John’s nephew and megalomaniacal tyrant-in-training. He’s a suavely aw-shucks leading man as he bounces between sets of opposing characters and his loyalties are constantly thrown into question.
Director Mary Francis Moore’s production is colourful, kinetic and very sparkly! Ming Wong’s costumes have that familiar medieval shape, with glittering fabrics and accessories that give them a whimsical glamour. It’s expected that Robin Hood will be dressed in green, though I’m wondering if Pulo’s costume here is at all referencing the shiny green outfit for Anne Boleyn in Six (the part she played in the Toronto production).
Working in tandem with Bonnie Beecher’s lush lighting, Cameron Fraser’s background projections are responsible for a great deal of the fanciful atmosphere, though each environment is given weight and dimension by Brandon Kleiman set elements. The effect is meant to be cartoonish, the artifice is part of the charm, though this never feels flat or cheap. Prince John’s overly compensative dooms-day machine, which figures into the climax, is quite unabashedly suggestive.
The six featured songs are pulled from a rather extensive series of eras, one from as far back as the 1960s straight through to the mid-2010s, and Jennifer Mote’s choreography has ample pizazz. I especially love that the delightfully hokey “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” closes us out.
As per tradition, a handful of children get to go up on stage to help our heroes out with a simple task. I’ve only been catching the panto since 2019 (I’m such a newb, I know), so perhaps this has been tried in the past, but I did wonder this year how it might go if some kids were enlisted by the villain too! I’m sure it could be a thrill for aspiring, spotlight-hungry tykes to be affectionately booed as they partake in some nasty doings.
While not my favourite panto so far, this year’s Robin Hood: A Very Merry Family Musical has all of the things you could want and expect. Nobody’s slacking, everybody wins.
Robin Hood: A Very Merry Family Musical
November 27, 2025 to January 4, 2026
The Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre Centre
(189 Yonge Street)
2 hours (including intermission)
Damien Atkins, Daniel Williston & Julia Pulo in Robin Hood: A Very Merry Family Musical | Photo by Dahlia Katz