Matt Hewson
The Bellarine’s favourite original pantomime show is back with a brand new adventure in space.
Theatre 3Triple2’s space adventure 321… Blast Off: The Next Mission returns to the Potato Shed for the second week of the school holidays, with Planet Rescue looking for new cadets to help put things right in the solar system.
Jess Smith and Connor Aspland reprise their roles as Captain Luna Tik and Commander Carl Cosmic for this adventure.
The Planet Rescue team will launch into space to rescue the Moon, Venus and Neptune from their troubles, which centre around being kind to yourself, being a good friend and knowing who to talk to when you’re in trouble.
Cait Reynolds, who co-wrote the show with her mother Kerrie and is directing The Next Mission, said last year’s run of 321… Blast Off was one the theatre company’s most successful productions ever.
“A lot of audiences feedback last year was oh, this is so good, are you going to do it again?” Reynolds said.
“We’ve been working on this one since the last one finished… a lot of the feedback was around the music and how captivating the soundtrack was, so we’ve made that a really important part of this year’s mission.
“A lot of other positive feedback was about how the character interacted with the audience. It’s rare these days to have a pantomime where kids can join the actors on stage and, you know, help build the rocket ship or help with the rescue mission.”
Reynolds said that audience participation was “really key” to the show’s success.
“This year the cadets – our audience members – will be undertaking their very first physical exam, so they’ll be doing some marching drills,” she said.
“We encourage parents to come up and help us with our music section. There are heaps of opportunities throughout for kids to get up – we really pride ourselves on having that interaction.”
Theatre 3Triple 2’s 321… Blast Off: The Next Mission is at the Potato Shed at 10.30am and 1.30pm each day from October 1 to 4.
