PAW Patrol is a children's animated entertainment in which a 10-yr-old called Ryder commands a number of talking puppies that have been augmented with mechanised gear and perpetrate rescues, usually of recurring characters such as Mayor Goodway and her pet chicken Chickaletta or Cap'n Turbot and his friendly walrus Wally. It's made in Canada, but that's no excuse.
PAW Patrol Live! brings this central conceit to the stage, each dog rendered larger-than-life by an actor who is sort-of riding them. The plot, though I use that word loosely, is: after rescuing Chickaletta from the top of a pile of pumpkins on a train track the puppies are tasked with winning a race around their hometown of Adventure Bay (sorry: spoilers). The effect is dizzying and disorientating, like medieval torture.
I wouldn't claim to be the target audience for this kind of thing. That said, the classics of children's entertainment are defined by a cheeky wink to the parents, an understanding that many watching are suffering through this for the sake of their little ones. Bagpuss has the genius folk stylings of Gabriel and Madeleine, The Clangers spent a lot of their time swearing, and I worry that I use Pete as an excuse to watch Danger Mouse, Shaun The Sheep, and Hey Duggee. Hell, even Peppa Pig throws you a couple of sly jokes per episode.
There's none of that in PAW Patrol, which is so cringingly wholesome that I actually left the theatre a worse person to compensate. While sitting there, in the dark, I tried to determine if there was some deeper meaning to the madness. Is this an allegory of our exploitation of animals? An analysis of modern feudalism? An elegy for the demise of Marxism at the hands of technology?
Surprisingly, my project proved fruitless, mainly because I was distracted by a thousand screaming children loving every minute. Pete stated that PAW Patrol Live! was the best thing that had ever happened to him in his life. "The path to paradise begins in hell," said Dante, but did his path ever take him through PAW Patrol Live? It did not.
Someone is excited (and pleased with the free pompom we got on entry).
Welcome to the cheap seats.
It begins.
The Chickaletta Cheerleaders showed up to do...something.
You'll believe a dog can fly. But probably not.
Surely a metaphor for something!?
Did any of the crazily happy fans care for the pain of the man in row M, seat 3? What do you think.
