King of the Panto Nick Cassenbaum’s latest show is at JW3

Pantos have been performed at JW3 for the previous two years and the concept is growing in popularity. This year’s performance, which opened this week, is Cinderella and the Matzo Ball. It is once again written by Nick Cassenbaum, who has penned the previous two.

The playwright told Jewish News that “it’s been fun writing something that feels really British and really Jewish at the same time.” He makes no bones about the target audience. “The show is the local pantomime for Jewish people within the M25.”

Cassenbaum’s star is rising, but the 37-year-old’s love of the fun and quirky side of theatre is long standing. He became “disillusioned” with traditional theatre in his student days but found great joy in street theatre. “I went off after uni and was a street performer for a year,” he recalls. Cassenbaum got into “doing outdoor theatre and clowning and things like that and there was something really exciting to me about… the democracy of it”. You can see how this would all lead to pantomime.

The playwright has more strings to his bow than festive frolics though. His latest work is the two-person play REVENGE: After the Levoyah. It has been on tour in South East England and will be at the legendary Soho Theatre in December and January.

Cassenbaum grew up in Woodford Green, and the comedy uses the world of Jewish Essex with which he is familiar as its base. It does though move into more madcap territory. The setting is very deliberate. Cassenbaum explains that “a lot of my work explores Jewish Essex and the kind of people you get there. Because I feel like actually there hasn’t been much of that within Jewish representation in media.”

He is also working on an equally brilliantly titled follow-up – Rebellion after the B’nai Mitzvahs.

As you can probably gather, Judaism and Jewish culture is important to Cassenbaum. ‘The one thing that I really enjoy doing with my work is sitting on that that kind of world affectionately poking fun and also bringing in,” he explains.

Although we have traditions such as the Purim spiel, Jews are not necessarily be associated with the Christmas tradition of panto. Nick Cassenbaum is changing that.  “For me, [pantomime is] almost like a stress relief for the end of year,” he says. It is “a ritual where you go with your whole family and you can shout and laugh and scream and you know what’s going to come.”

Who needs that more than Jews right now?

Cinderella and the Matzo Ball is at JW3 until 4 January. jw3.org.uk