Guest Voice: Emma Gadsdon on Quintuple L Productions’ “Joffrey!”

January 2022

Guest voice: Emma Gadsdon on Quintuple L Productions’ Joffrey!

Pantomime has a long history in parody. While they are best known for their spoofs of classic folk tale (such as Dick Whittington, Cinderella or Jack and the Bean Stalk), in growing number, we are seeing pantomime productions parodying various pop culture properties. Quintuple L Productions’ Joffrey! The Story of Joffrey: A pantomime is one such show hoping to make the most of this movement. January 2022 will see Joffrey! grace the streets of Clapham as the production makes its temporary home in the Bread and Roses Theatre.

Joffrey! is an original parody of A Song of Ice and Fire, re-imagined as a traditional panto. It is a show that was written and first performed in the leadup to the Game of Thrones final season in 2019. In retrospect of Game of Thrones’ controversial finale, Joffrey! has become all the more judicious and entertaining, as a production that revels in the early story and hype of Game of Thrones. The show playfully flips the script to turn characters like Joffrey Baratheon into a triumphant hero and Ned Stark into a goatee-stroking villain. In doing so, Joffrey! has its cake and eats it too, capturing the tongue-and-cheek panto spirit by functioning as one big metatextual dig at ‘subverting expectations’.

Joffrey! The Story of Joffrey: A pantomime will take you back to simpler times in Westeros, when all a King had to worry about was his nipples freezing off in Winterfell. Audiences are encouraged to laugh, cheer and boo at the plots and schemes of those who reside in King’s Landing. There is the boisterous King Robert, the beautiful and hairy Queen Cersei, the dastardly Hand of the King Ned Stark, his blundering minion Little Finger, the sweet but conflicted Sansa Stark and the titular handsome Prince Joffrey.

With House of the Dragon due to be released in 2022, the crew behind Joffrey! are excited to engage with Game of Thrones mania once again. Like House of the Dragon, starring Matt Smith, Joffrey! showcases the talent of some University of East Anglia alumni. It was at UEA that Joffrey! The Story of Joffrey: A Pantomime and Quintuple L Productions was conceived. What began as a half-joking half-serious scheme between friends at a party, developed into a fully-fledged production within the space of a year. That first production of Joffrey! was the conception of Quintuple L Productions as we know it today. Now, both the company and production of Joffrey! have been refined and are ready to storm the Bread and Roses Theatre.

Sam Went, the writer of Joffrey!, has previously received a five-star review from The Open Door for his one man show Bicentennial Fan, performed at the Camden Fringe, and he wrote Four Minute Warning, an audio drama that received a four-star review from Everything Theatre and was nominated for two awards. Quintuple L Productions is currently in the process of preparing a number of other shows alongside Joffrey! such as Press: Now A Major Motion Picture, coming back from its 2021 five star run at the Edinburgh Fringe.

If you are looking to cheer up a dreary January, consider purchasing a ticket for Joffrey!

JOFFREY! THE STORY OF JOFFREY plays The Bread & Roses Theatre (68 Clapham Manor Street, Clapham) January 18th – January 22nd 2022. You can find tickets here.