Dick Whittington And His Cat
By Anthony Spargo
Directed by James Haddrell
Greenwich Theatre
Star rating: 3
A no-frills, low budget panto for family audiences, this Dick Whittington ticks most of the boxes. You don’t actually need a dozen different costumes for the Dame (Phil Yarrow as Meggs) or an ensemble of six or eight professional dancers because children won’t notice. It’s also good to offer work to beginners. The three-person ensemble in this show are all second year Trinity Laban students in their first professional job.
The opening is a bit flat but the show picks up as soon as we meet the baddies: the very talented and funny Louise Cielecki as Muffy, the mouse who wants to be a rat (and my word, can she sing!) and Anthony Spargo as King Rat. Spargo, who has also written this show set firmly in the 1960s, is glitteringly good in his caddish red and white striped suit and comic malevolence. He is also a casino owner who cheats and that works a treat too as does his very competent rendering of a jazz number at the club he owns. One is sorry every time the pair of them exit.
It’s a musically colourful show with numbers ranging from, among other things, Sinatra to a version of These are a Few of My Favourite Things and I’m a Dedicated Follower of Fashion although the Last Post joke in the rather understated slosh scene (in which nobody gets wet or dirty) is puzzlingly inappropriate. Musical director Steve Markwick sits in a stage-left box, playing keys and bass guitar opposite guitarist Gordon Parrish and they sometimes emerge to take part in the action which adds a level of immediacy. Drummer Chris Wyles is out of sight.
It’s a good idea to cast an actor-muso as Tommie the Cat. Inez Ruiz plays a fair bit of sax in this show and evinces accomplished musicality with every movement she makes and note she sings.
We think we know panto stories so it’s fun when a writer builds in a completely new flight of fictional fancy – travelling back in time (via a phone box of course) to stop the Great Fire of London with a modern fire extinguisher thereby changing the course of history. I’m not sure the huge primary school party I saw it with quite grasped the finer points of this or the second time shift, but it is bravely done.
