Convincing the kids as Dame Dolly Dulallie
Mulcahy, who plays Dame Dolly Dulallie in CADA’s production of Beauty and the Beast at the Everyman Palace Theatre (until January 8), has been playing the dame for 20 years. This year, he is on stage for most of the show as Beauty’s mother, who winds up in the Beast’s castle under the illusion that he is on the set of Dragon’s Den. He eats berries, which causes him to suffer hallucinations.
Mulcahy knows the children in the audience can’t be fobbed off by actors reciting their lines and remaining detached. Up against 3D films, the X Factor, Xboxes and Nintendo, Mulcahy is keenly aware of the need to win over the attention of children who are exposed to so much fast-paced sophisticated entertainment. His goal is to avoid what he calls ‘Tayto moments’. “When somebody comes on stage to sing a song that has nothing to do with the pantomime, the kids will start opening their bags of Taytos. That shouldn’t happen. In panto, we have to keep the children on the ball. The dame, in particular, has to have a lot of interaction with the children,” he says.
