Perth Voice Interactive

IN a comedy theatre production honouring late UK fantasy writer Terry Pratchett, Bayswater actor Jim Chantry plays a liar.

His character in Maskerade is world-famous tenor Enrico Basilica, who pretends to be a foreigner at an opera house set in Pratchett’s Discworld fantasyland Ankh-Morpork.

Basilica even has a manager to translate the local language he already knows.

“He doesn’t want to be seen as a local boy,” Chantry, 69, told the Voice.

“There’s a scene where Nanny Ogg (a witch) makes a special meal to make me happy,” Chantry says.

“It ends with a pudding no-one was expecting. It’s rather spicy, but that doesn’t affect my character because it’s the food he grew up with.”

Chantry says good witches disguise their spells in recipes to uncover truths and dispel mysteries.

While the “nonsensical” play features mayhem and murder, he says there is always comedy.

The play is a send-up of French writer Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera, with a ghost lurking in the shadows of the theatre.

Pratchett, who died in March after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease, was the UK’s best-selling author in the 1990s, selling more than 82 million books in 37 languages.

The ARENAarts play will show next month at the Latvian Centre Theatre, at 60 Cleaver Terrace in Belmont.

Shows run from July 3-18. Almost all are at 8pm, but there are 2pm matinees July 5 and 12.

Tickets are from $16. To book, email arenaarts@hotmail.com.au or visit trybooking.com/HRRP.

by EMMIE DOWLING