Welcome to the magical, mysterious and always memorable world of Goldie Frocks and the Bear Mitzvah. Join Goldie, the best dressmaker in all of the East End, as she zips her way through London on a quest for some furry fabrics.
Along the way she meets Mama Behr and Baby Behr as they prepare for the best bear mitzvah that Cirque Du Oy Vey has ever seen!
You'll be in stitches laughing at all of the unbearable jokes, you'll be singing along with the pawsome on-stage band, and we might even have a magic trick or two up our sleeves.
Our 2024 panto will be a fun-filled extravaganza for the whole family, brought to you by the same creative team behind the award-nominated, 5* sellout hit Red Riding Hood and The Big Bad Pig.
So don't miss out, and book your tickets today!
NB: There's free parking on Finchley Road and adjacent side roads all-day Sunday. More info on our parking page.
Relaxed Performance Dates
Relaxed performances are ideal for people with learning disabilities or autism, or anyone who would benefit from a more relaxed environment.
These performances are of course still open for anyone to book. During our relaxed performances, we will be making the following changes:
- House lights remaining switched on at a low level throughout the performance
- Noise from the performance will be reduced throughout the performance
- No sudden flashes or lighting changes
Relaxed Performances will be shown on the following dates and times:
Wednesday 11 December @ 5pm
Tuesday 17 December @ 1pm
Thursday 2 January @ 7pm
Live Captioning
The following performances will include live captioning:
Saturday 28 December @ 7pm
Tuesday 31 December @ 11am
Thursday 2 January @ 7pm
An unbearably good show.
A cheery tale with lots of laughs.
Everything that you want a pantomime to be.
Goldie Frocks and the Bear Mitzvah uses some words and phrases that might be new to you, including some in Yiddish.
Check out our glossary of terms below, and learn what these words mean!
Cast■
David Ellis - Maxie Dress/Rabbi Drake (Understudy: Mama Behr, Morris Bloom)
David Ellis is an actor, comedian and award-winning writer originally from Bedford.
David saw the Jewish panto last year and thought “Wow, I’d love to do that!” and now he is! He could not be more pleased!
Theatre includes: Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet (Sh!t-faced Shakespeare),Yid (Emanate/ Kiln Theatre) Voices From Home - My Boys (Theatre 503) Checkpoint 22
(Underbelly/ King’s Head/ New Diorama) Potted Potter (Panasonic Theatre, Toronto), The Reduced Shakespeare Company’s The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
(abridged) and The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged) (UK & Ireland Tour), The American Clock, The Andes, Cornelius (Finborough Theatre) Cornelius (59E59
Theaters, Brits Off Broadway), Spunk, Notice (Miniaturists, Arcola), The History Boys (Sell a Door Theatre Company) Sacrifice, Rob & The Hoodies (Vienna’s English Theatre), Much Ado About Nothing (Fast & Loose), NewsRevue (Canal Café).
Television & Film includes: Urban Myths (Sky Arts), How You Look at Me (Amazon Prime).
As a comic, David performed his show The Worst Jew at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2023 and 24 and plans to return next year.
David makes award-winning short films with his production company Underground Treehouse. His work has been featured on BBC, screened at the BFI and accepted into
BAFTA qualifying festivals.
Debbie Chazen - Mama Behr
Film inc: Finger Food, Sleepyhead, Red Joan, Topsy Turvy, Pops, Feeder, Ploey, The Duel, Suzie Gold, Beginners Luck, Tooth
TV inc: The Sister Boniface Mysteries, Dalgliesh, The Last Kingdom, Dodger, Avenue 5, Urban Myths, Trollied, The Spa, Tittybangbang, Psychoville, Dr Who, Sherlock, The Smoking Room, Dead Pixels, Sticks and Stones, Holby City, Midsomer Murders, Nicholas Nickleby, Agatha Raisin, Tess of the D’Urbevilles, We Are Klang, You, Me and the Apocalypse, Asylum, The Job Lot, The Impressions Show, Ambassadors, Great Night Out, Doc Martin, Murder in Suburbia, Mine All Mine, This Is Jinsy, White Van Man, Uncle Max, The Estate Agents, Mile High, Grass, Doctors, Gimme Gimme Gimme, Lucy Sullivan Is Getting Married, An Unsuitable Job For A Woman, Casualty, Coronation Street, Cynthia, The Bill, Eastenders, A Christmas Carol, Killer Net, The Lakes
Theatre inc: Cable St (Southwark Playhouse); Red Riding Hood and The Big Bad Pig (JW3); Stills (JW3), Jews: In Their Own Words (Royal Court), Our Generation (The National and Chichester Festival Theatre), The Child In The Snow (Wilton’s Music Hall), Gin Craze! (Northampton Royal & Derngate), Am Dram the Musical (Queen Mary II Cruise Ship, The Other Palace, Leicester Curve), Rags (Park Theatre), Sitting (Hong Kong), Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare’s Globe), 3 Women (Trafalgar Studios), A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur (Print Room), Calendar Girls The Musical (West End and tour - Oliver Award nomination, Best Actress in a Musical), Listen, We’re Family (JW3, Wilton’s Music Hall), Neko (The Kiln), Fred Karno’s Circus (Bristol Slapstick Festival), Calendar Girls the Play (West End and tour), The Duck House (Vaudeville Theatre), Love and Information, The Cherry Orchard (Sheffield Crucible), A Little Hotel On The Side (Bath Theatre Royal), Stephen Fry’s Cinderella (Old Vic), In Basildon, Untitled Matriarch Play, Mint, The President’s Come To See You, The Girlfriend Experience (The Royal Court), Mother Clapp’s Molly House, Beyond The Tracks (RSC), Crooked (The Bush), Phillip Pullman’s Aladdin (Bristol Old Vic), A Prayer for Owen Meany (The National Theatre), Dick Whittington (Barbican), The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (Salisbury Playhouse), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Aldwych), Frogs (Nottingham Playhouse)
Radio inc: Chicken Soup With Barley, Jack and Millie, Family Business, Yentl, Chinwag, The Pick Up, Giles Wembley-Hogg, Electric Ink, The Lucy Montgomery Variety Pack, The Roland Darvelle Hotel, Pub and Murder Guide, Another Case of Milton Jones, St Brice’s Day, Dinner Ladies
Debbie is also a jazz singer and songwriter, performing under the name The Brazen Ms Chazen.
Frankie Thompson - Baby Behr
Frankie Thompson is an ‘acclaimed clown’ (ToDoList) and performance artist. Her work has had sell out runs across London and Edinburgh. Frankie's anarchic one-woman show Catts, a lip-synching adaptation of Cats(the musical), enjoyed a sold out run at the Edinburgh Fringe 2022 to rave reviews which followed with two sell-out runs at Soho Theatre, extended due to phenomenal demand.
Heloise Lowenthal - Goldie Frocks
Heloise trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. Theatre Highlights include Robin Hood (Bristol Old Vic); The Rat Trap (New York City Center); and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Yvonne Arnaud/Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre). Her work for screen includes, Before We Die (Channel 4); The Cider Shed Dreams (Pasture Promise); Rockumentary (Pendennis Films). They are currently taking part in a dramaturgy development scheme with Divergent Talent Group, and have worked as a creative collaborator on projects including we were promised honey (YESYESNONO), The Last Show Before We Die (The Hotter Project), and Dear Young Monster (Bristol Old Vic). She has worked extensively with The Wardrobe Ensemble as an actor and collaborator. More recently, they have been taking part in the Yiddish Theatre Scene, including working on Miryeml, in its first ever public performance, having been translated from Yiddish by Sonia Gollance.
Ian Saville - Morris Bloom
Ian Saville began doing magic tricks at the age of 10 or 11. Since then he has studied Drama at Exeter University, worked with the touring political theatre group Broadside Mobile Workers' Theatre, and in community theatre. Around 1979 he started developing a "socialist magic" act, using magic tricks and ventriloquism to present and celebrate a socialist view of the world which has been performed in theatres, cabaret clubs, festivals, as well as conferences, demonstrations and on picket lines. This developed into one-man shows such as the award winning Brecht on Magic (in which a ventriloquial dummy of Bertolt Brecht encourages the magician to incorporate socialist ideas into his tricks), Getting Nowhere Again (an examination of utopias in the company of William Morris), and The Free Money Magic Show (an examination of money and the magical way it works). Ian's PhD is on the history of workers’ theatre groups in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s, and he taught for many years on the Theatre Arts course at Middlesex University.
Simon Yadoo - Calvin Brine
Simon trained at LAMDA.
Stage work includes: "What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank" (Marylebone Theatre); “She Stoops To Conquer + Love’s Labours Lost” (Changeling Theatre); “Oi Frog & Friends” (West End & UK Tour); “Coriolanus”, “Salome”, “Henry V”, “Henry IV” Parts I and II, “Richard II”, “The Famous Victories of Henry V,” “The Two Gentlemen of Verona” (all RSC); “Damned by Despair” (National Theatre), “The Real Thing” (Old Vic); “My Family and Other Animals” (York Theatre Royal); “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, “The Wizard Of Oz”, “A Christmas Carol”, “Snow White and Tales from the Brothers Grimm” (Creation Theatre); “Richard III”, “Demi Monde”, “The Half Life of William Morris”, “Oliver Twist”, “La Ronde” (Love and Madness/Riverside Studios), “Dogfight” (Arcola).
Screen work includes: “Muppets Most Wanted”, “The Constant Gardener”, “Frequencies” (all feature films); "Wimpole Street" (Amazon Prime)
Radio + Audio includes: David Copperfield (Wireless Theatre), Pride and Prejudice (Audible)
Yael Elisheva - Minnie Skirt/Judaicamonger (Understudy: Goldie Frocks, Baby Behr, Calvin Brine)
Yael is thrilled to be back performing at JW3! They are an actor, drag artist, theatre-maker, writer, director, and overthinker. Yael recently premiered their one-person show, The Wise Men of Chelm at Camden Fringe Festival where they play five different Jewish men grappling with their masculinity and whether or not to call their mum's back. Other UK performance credits include; Mycelial (Northern Stage, Open Clasp Theatre Company), lead in In This Smoking Chaos (Queens Theatre, Hornchurch), various characters in Schlepping (The Coronet Theatre)King Berenger in Exit The King (RADA). Instagram: yaelelisheva
Band■
Josh Middleton - Musical Director
Josh Middleton is a multi-instrumentalist, Composer and Musical Director specialising in Klezmer. He has worked with Klezmer ensembles She’koyokh and The London Klezmer Quartet, taught at Klezfest UK alongside Klezmer Scholars Alan Bern and Joel Rubin and performed with Frank London (The Klezmatics) and Merlin Shepherd.
He has toured extensively as Musical Director and accordionist with String Theatre (Tunisia, Turkey, Russia, Hungary, Serbia), Nick Cassenbaum’s Bubble Shmeisis (UK, USA, Malta) and his ensemble Don Kipper( to much critical acclaim: **** The Guardian, **** The Evening Standard).
Theatre Credits include Indecent (The Menier Chocolate Factory 2020, 2021)
Musical Director Credits include Watch on the Rhine (The Donmar Warehouse 2022)
Christina Borgenstierna - Musician
Initially drawn towards Eastern European music during her degree at Goldsmiths University (BMus in Composition and Studio Composition, 2002), Christina furthered her studies taking up Bulgarian percussion at the Plovdiv Music Academy with Mitko Popov, arranger and drummer of the world-touring Trakia Ensemble. At the same time and drawn by the magic of Klezmer music, Christina ventured into Klezmer percussion in 2010 when joining Bucimis Trio and She’Koyokh Klezmer and Balkan Ensemble (2014). She has since become one of Britain’s few specialist poik players.
Christina has also explored Middle Eastern percussion with Sohar Fresco, Hadi Alizadeh, Adam Warne and Guy Schalom, and hence incorporates frame drums, riqq and darabuka into her percussion palette.
As a composer and producer Christina works in a variety of projects including arrangements of traditional tunes, music for image and film, and songwriting collaborations.
Dr Daniel Gouly - Musician
Dr Daniel Gouly is a clarinetist, composer, and co-founder of Don Kipper, an ensemble celebrated for its innovative blend of traditional Mediterranean and contemporary music, earning multiple awards and critical acclaim. He specialises in performing musics from across Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, and has studied with, and played alongside, legendary Klezmer musicians such as Alan Bern, Frank London, Merlin Shepherd, Christian Dawid, and Joel Rubin, as well significant figures from other traditions such as Manos Achalinotopoulos.
With a strong focus on theatre, he has toured the UK, US, and Europe with the acclaimed Bubbleschmeisis, and created multi-sensory shows with Oily Cart and other theatre companies, demonstrating his commitment to accessible, community-focused art, blending music, storytelling, and cultural history to create compelling and impactful performances. He also has a parallel career releasing the deepest, darkest Techno he can make, and spends far too long hanging out with his synthesisers.
Creative Team■
Abigail Anderson - Director
Abi is an award-winning director who has directed more than 100 productions, around the UK and internationally. She first directed panto when she was an Associate Director of the Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds back in 2009, and has hardly missed a year doing panto somewhere since. Besides panto, her other passions are Shakespeare (she has directed 18 of his plays so far) and adaptations of novels. The adaptation of Pride and Prejudice for two actors which she co-created with Two Bit Classics has not only been revived several times in the UK, but three times in South Korea. She is delighted to be directing at JW3 which she has visited often as a parent of young children.
Amy Daniels - Lighting Designer
Amy (she/her) is a London-based freelance lighting designer, with occasional stints as a technical stage manager. A lover of theatre since she can remember, she studied English Literature at the University of Sussex, then fell in love with all things production during a year abroad at Stony Brook University in New York. She was the technical manager at Camden People's Theatre from August 2018 until September 2022, during which time she focused her practice from technical management towards production lighting and lighting design. She works on a wide range of performance, with an emphasis on the political, the playful and the pondering. Find her full credits and portfolio on her website - www.amydanielslighting.com.
Becky Plotnek - Producer
Becky Plotnek is a creative arts producer who makes things happen. They support irreverent, joyful, experimental work that is resistant to the way things are. They are currently working with a rich mix of artists across theatre, performance art, cabaret and combined arts, including Midgitte Bardot (AKA Tammy Reynolds), An* Neely & Moa Johannsson, and Hannah Maxwell. They were co-curator for DICE Festival which presented at Summerhall (Edinburgh Fringe) and Barbican. Becky is absolutely delighted to be returning to produce JW3's second pantomime.
Becky-Dee Trevenen - Designer
Becky-Dee Trevenen is British-Australian Theatre Designer with experience spanning many forms of live performance, with a particular focus on physical theatre and interactive design. Working on an international scale, her work ranges from intimate one-on-one experiences, to sprawling multi-warehouse installations.
Recent projects include: For Tangled Feet she designed dynamic, sculptural set-pieces for Butterflies (Half Moon, UK Tour) and Half Life (The Albany, Gulbenkian, Arc). For Migration Museum, she was commissioned to create two interactive installations for their 2020 exhibition Departures; And for Kings Head Theatre designed the West End transfer of Strangers In Between, The Offie-winning production of Tosca and the Olivier-nominated production of La Boheme.
She frequently works with immersive theatre pioneers Punchdrunk and Punchdrunk Enrichment, most recently, as the Head of Set Dressing on The Burnt City and is currently a Designer Mentor and Workshop Leader for Punchdrunk Enrichment.
Becky-Dee completed a Bachelor of Dramatic Art at NIDA in Sydney, Australia in 2014 where she was awarded the William Fletcher Foundation Award and was the Big Brother Movement Drama Scholar in 2015.
Johnny Edwards - Sound Designer
As Sound Designer and Composer work includes:
Peter Pan at The Gate Dublin; Directed by Ned Bennett, Happy Days at Riverside Studios; Directed by Trevor Nunn, Idle, They Yammer at The Other Room; Directed by Dan Jones, Widows at RCSSD; Directed by Dan Sherer, Where Do We Go From here At Pentabus; Directed by Elle While and Andrew Sterry, Getaway/Runaway at the Kings Head; Directed by Noah Mcreadie, X at the Academie voor Theater en Dans; directed by Chloe Harris,Donal The Numb at The Vaults; Directed by Ross White,Moorcroft at Tristan Bates Theatre; Directed by Eilidh Loan,In The Wake Of at the Lion and Unicorn; Directed by Matt Strachan,The Tale of Two Bad Mice with Almost Tangible; Directed by Eilidh Loan.
As Associate Sound Designer productions include:
Coriolanus at The National Theatre, People, Places and Things at Trafalgar Theatre, Long Days Journey Into Night at Wyndhams Theatre, Blues for an Alabama Sky at The National Theatre,Jitney at the Old Vic; The Doctor at the Park Avenue Armory NYC, Almeida, Burgtheater, Vienna, International Theatre, Amsterdam and Adelaide Festival; The Mirror Crack’d Uk Tour, Cherry Orchard at The Yard; and Animal Farm on UK tour.
Nick Cassenbaum - Writer
Nick is a theatre maker whose work asks audiences to think about how they engage with spaces, places and people. Nick’s work has toured internationally, selling out in venues around the world. He has written plays, created and performed solo work and made street performances in collaboration with some of the country’s most celebrated venues, including The Royal Court, Soho Theatre and Battersea Arts Centre, and he has broadcast podcasts for The Guardian.
Yael Loewenstein - Choreographer
Yael trained in ballet and contemporary dance in Canada. When then undertaking her Masters in Choreography (Middlesex University), she discovered a passion for choreography and movement direction for narrative contexts working on theatre, opera, and screen-based media productions. For the past two and a half decades Yael’s work has been part of a wide variety of productions on stages small and large, from Shakespeare to new writing, music theatre to motion-capture, opera to choreography for new music. Yael teaches for several institutions including London Contemporary Dance School, Millennium Performing Arts College, and London Studio Centre. Over the years Yael has delivered movement-based experiences to people of all ages, notably for the Imagine Children’s Festival (Southbank Centre), and writing, directing, and choreographing an interactive piece of music theatre for the V&A Museum. For a full list of credits, please visit www.yaelloewenstein.com.