pantomime
Helen Hawkins
On paper, this RSC revival of Ella Hickson’s 2013 adaptation sounds just the ticket: a feminist spin on the familiar JM Barrie story, with a gorgeous set, lots of wire work and all graced with the orotund tones of Toby Stephens as Captain Hook. In action, this mix doesn’t work as well as you want it to.I decided fairly quickly that I didn’t really know who the piece was for. The RSC gave us Matilda so it has previous in devising superior entertainment that older children can enjoy, their accompanying adults too. But here the younger part of the audience seem to be the prime concern, with a Read more ...
Gary Naylor
Many years ago, reviewing pantomime for the first time, I recall looking around in the stalls. My brain was saying, “This is terrible, the jokes are lame, the acting execrable and the set garish.” My eyes were saying, “These kids are loving it, their parents are liking it enough, and the cast are having a great time.” There was joy everywhere in the house, so who was I to play The Grinch?That memory went through my mind standing at the box office 90 minutes before the curtain, surrounded by merch aimed at the coach parties being disgorged outside. An American family from central casting – Read more ...
Gary Naylor
Older readers may recall the cobbled together, ramshackle play, a staple of the Golden Age of Light Entertainment that would close out The Morecambe and Wise Show and The Generation Game. Mercifully, we don’t have grandmothers from Slough squinting as they read lines off the back of a teapot in this show, but there are still too many callbacks to those long-forgotten set pieces of Saturday night telly.There’s a lot of effort put into creating a 1950s Cold War vibe in Emma Rice’s adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, but that jokey 1970s tone overpowers set design, costuming, Read more ...
Gary Naylor
This Celine Dion jukebox musical has been a big hit in New York, but crossing The Atlantic can be perilous for any production, so, docked now at the Criterion Theatre, does it sink or float?We open on a framing device, with a group of tourists being shown round a Titanic museum (there’s a whole industry built up around its legend). Any interest/concern that we’re in for a probing analysis of the ethics of monetising the tragic deaths of over 1500 souls due to, at the very least, some element of corporate negligence, is dispelled by a guide who is just aching to go full jazz hands and sing and Read more ...
David Nice
This is the show that launched a thousand puns, mostly ancient-Greek-oriented, and just as many corny rhymes, all delivered with high energy and greeted with joyful groans. To say it’s no epic is a compliment: Charles Court Opera’s boutique pantos rely upon perfect focus in small spaces, and this is a tight little craft, with five brilliant women firing up director/writer John Savournin’s script and David Eaton’s musical arrangements.The gods aren’t happy with stagnation in Ithaca and Odysseus so far from home. The delivery service from Tamoy Phipps’ easily dispirited Hermes/Mercury has a Read more ...
Jonathan Geddes
There was a moment towards the end of this exuberant evening when Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson compared the show to a pantomime. This was an extremely apt comparison, in a good way, for alongside the singing and dancing there was a helping of cheeky raised eyebrow wit, lashes of audience participation and even the usage of unexpected props.When a bra was launched towards the Dublin songstress she sashayed around with it and asked for “more where that came from”, which is why several moments later the Glasgow crowd found themselves enjoying the sight of Thompson clutching more underwear while Read more ...
Gary Naylor
A flea bites a rat which spooks a horse which kicks a man and… an empire falls?James Fritz has won writing awards already in his developing career, but he has set himself quite the challenge to weave a thread that can bear that narrative weight. Two and a half hours later in this retelling of the late 19th-century Cleveland Street scandal, the empire survives, the fall guy takes the inevitable tumble and we’re a little punchdrunk. Here is a play that beats you up with its sheer volume of artistic choices but also dips into stretches of unnecessary exposition that drain energy away: there’s a Read more ...
Veronica Lee
The starting point of this musical comedy – using a panto format to take a deep dive into the UK's immigration law – comes from such a good place that one feels a real heel for criticising it. But however much I wanted to like Shani Erez's ambitious work for BOLD Theatre, I really couldn't.The story within a story follows a group of immigrants to “Britaim” as they stage a panto – what could be more British? – to show their love and knowledge of UK culture.For panto fans there are nods to Dick Whittington, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty as the story follows Lord Villain (Vikash Bhai), the Read more ...
Gary Naylor
After the pantos, the movies (epic, camp and animated) and the television series, is there anything new to be mined in the story of Robin Hood? Probably not, as this messy, misjudged show takes that hope and fires an arrow through its heart.We’re in an Albion of misty woods, mighty castles and feudal exploitation, the King weakened by poison administered by his right hand man, Sheriff Baldwyn, whose day job is brutally extracting taxes from the peasants to build a new road for the barons (Shaun Yusuf McKee, Simon Oskarsson and TJ Holmes pictured below). He doesn’t have it all his own way: Read more ...
The Great British Bake Off Musical, Noel Coward Theatre review - blue-chip cast lift daft confection
Helen Hawkins
If you are hoping for some harmless fun at The Great British Bake Off Musical, probably with a few dodgy jokes about soggy bottoms mixed in, you won’t be disappointed. But what you might not expect is that the show will liberally ladle on the innuendo and is so filthy at times that it’s like being at an adult panto. The audience on opening night certainly seemed a primed one, aahing when a contestant was sent home, booing when one resorted to sabotage. What else can the writers do, though, other than step up the smut when their subject is a storyless TV show set almost entirely in a Read more ...
Veronica Lee
What joy it is to have pantomime and Christmas shows back with full audiences up and down the country – everything from local shows to star-driven productions, many of them postponed from 2020 but with an awful lot happening in between to provide the topical references.Two star-driven shows lead the panto pack in London: it's great to see Ian McKellen back as the Dame in Mother Goose at the Duke of York's, while Julian Clary is The Spirit of the Beans in Jack and the Beanstalk (*****) at the London Palladium until 15 January.Clary, as you might expect, wrings every double entendre possible Read more ...
Veronica Lee
There was a time when UK pantomime was heavily populated by Australian soap stars; rather late in the day Jason Donovan – formerly known as Scott from Neighbours – makes his panto debut, as Count (careful how you pronounce that, Jason) Ramsay of Erinsborough.Playing against type in a baddie role, he acquits himself well in this thoroughly entertaining spectacle with several nods to vaudeville (including circus acts in the line-up), but his fans might wish he played a more substantial part in proceedings.It’s well into the second act before he has much to do. In a paper-thin plot, Donovan's Read more ...