Tickles and The Beanstalk - Meet the Cast

The team who brought you ‘Snow White’, ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘Cinderella’ return for The Civic Panto 2024 ‘Tickles and The Beanstalk’ and we are thrilled to announce this years cast.

Meet the cast:

Tickles: Kevin Keeley

A Tallaght native, Kevin attended Atomic Stage School for many years. And after finishing secondary school went on to become a finalist in ‘The Voice Of Ireland’ mentored by Sharon Corr.

Credits include playing Snake Eyes in the Spotlight production of ‘Bugsy Malone’. From then he went on to return to the Olympia Theatre for 7consecutive years playing main characters in the Olympia Pantomime such as The Ugly Sister in ‘Cinderella’, Aladdin in ‘Aladdin’, Jack in ‘Jack And The Beanstalk’ and many more from 2004-2011. Other credits include ‘The June Rogers Christmas Show’.

Kevin worked with some of Ireland’s most well-known talents having shared the stage with The Great Noel V Ginnity, Linda Martin, Johnny Logan, Al Porter and Jedward, June Rodgers. Recently he toured The States for 15 weeks as a backing vocalist for ‘Celtic Woman’, before making his return to the show business industry. Now based and living in the UK , Kevin also plays the butler ‘Wiggles’ in The Civic Halloween Spooktacular.

Jill: Keila Ana Whelan
Keila graduated from BIMM Dublin in 2017 with a BA in Commercial and Modern Music. Credits include ‘Raising your Voice Through the Power of Music’, Concert for Mental Health Ireland alongside Colm Wilkinson, Wendla in ‘Spring Awakening’, understudy Fantine in ‘Les Miserables’, Wednesday in ‘The Addams Family’, (AIMS Best Supporting Actress Nominee) and Laurie in ‘Oklahoma’ in the National Concert Hall.

Professional Credits Include Princess Aurora, Snow White, Cinderella & Wendy with ‘Cheerios Panto’ 2018-2021 at The Tivoli, RHK and Malahide Castle. She was a featured Soloist in ‘Encore’ at The Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, Anna in ‘New Fish’ at Smock Alley Theatre, (Original Cast), Swing for ‘SHOUT! The Mod Musical’ (Irish Tour) and also as part of the ensemble in ‘SCAM The Musical’ (Irish Premiere at The Civic Theatre) and many more. Keila played the part of Fairy Flutter in The Civic Halloween Spooktacular, 2024.

Dame Dottie: Robert Downes

Robert graduated in 2015 from The Conservatory of Music and Drama TU Dublin where he received a BA honours degree in Drama Performance. Also a graduate of NUI Galway’s MA programme in Drama and Theatre Studies, Robert is an actor, playwright, director, and drama teacher. He is also the artistic director of SQUAD Productions, a small Dublin based theatre company committed to bringing innovative and collaborative theatre practices and experiences to Irish audiences. Recent work includes ‘The G Trilogy’ a trilogy of campy horror radio plays which he wrote and directed, featured in The Lasta Festival in association with the Town Hall Theatre Galway. ‘Dudder one’ in Causeway Production’s ‘Snow White’s Big Adventure – a Panto’.

‘The Dwyer Scandal’, written by Robert received a Pride Bursary from The International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival and was subsequently published in ‘18 and Coming of Age’, an anthology of plays from the festival. Robert loves a panto and being a Panto Dame has been a dream since he was a young wan. This is his third year playing Dame Dottie.

Sarah Harvey: Baroness Trump

Sarah began her full time training in Sallynoggin College of Further Education where she studied dance. Late completing a diploma in musical theatre performance with the London college of music she was invited to attend north London dance studios on a scholarship training week. She also studied singing through the ABRSM and taught performing arts in Sydney Australia for a year.

Credits include the premiere of ‘Whiskey in the Jar’, and ‘Wilde Nights’ on the Oscar Wilde with Irish Ferries and ‘The Promise’ an Irish musical which premiered in the Helix. In 2015, Sarah performed as a leading vocalist on one of the most prestigious cruise lines, the ‘Seabourn Quest’, completing a world cruise visiting over 20 countries. Film credits include: featured dancer in Mrs. Browns Boys D’movie.

Taking a short break from the stage as she took on her most important role to date … being a mother! She returned to the stage in Rob Murphy’s ‘Let Loose’ which she also choreographed. She also choreographed The Civic Halloween Spooktacular this year. Sara is delighted to be returning to the cast of the Civic Panto this Christmas.

Aidan Gavin: MOOTilda

Aidan returns to The Civic panto family this year. Having performes as Ugly Sister Dame Lotte, Aidan will play the role of MOOOtilda. Aidan has always had performing in his blood and trained with Dizzy Footwork Academy as a child whilst also performing as a Panto Dame in the amateur circle for many years.

As a vocalist Aidan released his first original song on Spotify called Esta Noche in 2020 which reached over 20K streams. Aidan loves creating TikToks and has over 30K followers on the platform. For the last year Aidan has been travelling the UK and Ireland with Bingo Loco, recently they played their biggest show yet at Live At The Marquee in Cork.

Introducing Ruth Lenoard as ‘Fairy Ruthless’

Ruth Leonard is a social media star, known for her motherhood, lip sync, and comedy content. She often creates comedy skits about her life as a woman, mother, and wife.

Ruth intorduces herself ‘I’m Ruth Leonard aka Totally Ruthless. I’m 47 yrs young I’m married to Andy with 2 children Jess 19 and Joe 15. I’m from Drogheda Co. Louth all my and have lived there all my life. I’ve been in panto since I was 6 in the chorus. As a child I did tap dancing, jazz ballet and disco. That then morphed into acting playing comedy, serious and baddy roles until I was 30 yrs old and I absolutely loved it of course houses marriage and kids get in the way……… I downloaded Snapchat 7 years ago and uploaded my first video (slimming world ) which now has 8 million views. So I carried on doing funny videos and posting everyday Now I have 930k followers on TikTok, 56k on instagram, 360k on facebook. I always wanted to take up panto again and I was just thrilled when rob contacted me. Bring it on’.