An affectionate two-hander send up of the genre, this show works on the expectations of a pantomimically experienced audience – teasing them about already knowing when to shout and boo, for instance. And that includes some pretty knowing children one of whom almost stole the show at the performance I saw, politely but loudly demanding that baddie Abanazer be “impaled on a knife in the digestive system”. Cue for an ad lib quip about the lad’s Arsenal teeshirt.

Potted Panto is part of the “potted” series and has been around for eleven years although I was new to it. The concept is that two actors – Daniel Clarkson (who also co-writes with Jefferson Turner and director Richard Hurst) and Gary Trainor – decide, amidst much argument and banter, to stage an abbreviated version of the world’s six best pantos. There’s a running gag about the inappropriate inclusion of A Christmas Carol which, in the end, merges with Aladdin (Abanazer/Ebenezer – geddit?)

It’s slick in a hats/masks/ frocks Horrible Histories kind of way with a lot of the usual “out of role” asides such as Clarkson to Trainor when the latter is being both ugly sisters with a puppet; “Well that ventriloquism course didn’t do you much good”. And there are lots of jokes about having to play all the baddies and Trainor turning up in a magnificent feather hat as Prince Charming several times. I liked the comment in Sleeping Beauty about its being totally unacceptable to break into a sleeping girl’s bedroom and kiss her without consent – a quite witty comment on the vast gulf between pantomime life and real life.

Having said that, though, a lot of the humour is pretty laboured. Clarkson and Trainor are working hard with a lot of energy, beaming smiles and grimaces. Moreover they know exactly how to let a line settle for maximum effect  but a lot of it isn’t particularly funny.

The best five minutes is Clarkson donning a Boris Johnson wig as Dick (“Mayor of London”) Whittington and doing a hilarious satirical spot with Trainor about clearing the kingdom of plague,  office parties, Barnard Castle and a lot more. It is both edgy and up to date. Clarkson and co must adapt the script on an almost daily basis.

There is almost no music in this show until we get to the traditional, wearisome singalong at the end.  Instead, the focus is on plot(s) – seven of them in seventy minutes. It’s decent-ish entertainment if you want  a succinct Christmas show and your kids have seen a lot of pantos in the past although it really isn’t anything special.

First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/potted-panto/

Siobahn Athwal gives a witty performance as both Genies – with different voices, two costumes, a lot of quick changes and a crack about theatre having been through two terrible years and therefore  unable to afford two actors. Emma Ralston is entertaining as Frankie, Aladdin’s sister who replaces the Wishy Washy role and Rosie Cava-Beale sings beautifully as Princess Amirah. Toby Miles as Aladdin is a fair singer once he gets going and he can certainly dance and act convincingly.

I was also impressed by the use of projection including the Horsham photographs which form part of the set and the flying carpet sequence which uses images to create the illusion of movement. And putting the (very good) four piece band stage left in a band stand, steps to which form part of the set, is an original idea which makes deals with potential timing issues and makes the music feel coherent. It looks pretty too.

But  –  and of course there has to be one if not several – Morgan Brind’s script is witty but far too wordy and some of the songs are too long. The long narrative preamble is not a happy start when you have an audience full of very young children. There are a lot of good jokes tucked away but most of them are also thrown away. I have rarely seem comic timing so woefully mismanaged by so many actors in a pantomime. There is, for example, a sequence of quite clever fish puns which ought to produce a lot of laughter and groans. In fact it’s raced through so fast that most of it is lost. Of course there’s a place for word play in a panto but children need a lot of visual humour too and there’s very little slapstick in this show which has no slosh scene. The only time the children really got excited in the performance I saw was during the ghost scene (Yetis in Iceland in this instance) –  just five minutes in a two and half hour show. The result of all this was that many children in the audience were very restive although “my” six year old was more engaged in the stronger second half than the first. If panto doesn’t fully work for children then it’s missing the point.

First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/aladdin-18/

Using the version,  by Jemma Kennedy, originally commissioned by Unicorn Theatre in 2011, The Prince and the Pauper features identical twins (Leah Gayer and Mhairi Gayer in this case) as the titular pair just as the production at Unicorn did. Obviously, if you can find a suitably skilled pair this is perfect casting for a play about identity swapping although they should be more differently voiced than these two are. Mhairi Gayer isn’t long in the castle before she sounds like a Prince – and that doesn’t ring true.

Apart from the Gayers, there is a cast of six more professional actors – all accomplished actor-musos – and a team of eight young company members. The children rotate between shows in three teams and I saw Team Huckleberry with one substitution. Inevitably some are stronger than others and, because they’re not mic’ed, presumably for economy reasons, there are sometimes audibility problems.

Joelle Brabban, who moves between violin and viola, gives an impressive performance as Tom’s impoverished mother and the flouncy, flippant future Queen Elizabeth – making the most of Kennedy’s witty script, Dexter Southern brings gravitas and terror to Tom’s drunken, violent criminal father and to Henry VIII. He’s a fine guitarist and I liked the moment when he melts downstage from the throne to play a whistle. It was just one of the points in this production when the direction and choreography (Suzie Curran – lots of evocative choral stamping) drives the action and makes good use of Trinity’s unusually deep stage.

Emily Newsome is outstanding as a street busker with accordion. She has a magnificent singing voice, is no mean saxophonist and gives us a fairly convincing, faintly pantomimic, Miles Hendon, a good guy who tries to help Edward get back to his palace.

Full marks too for Stephen Hyde’s set which uses flapped flats with cartoon-style drawn buildings to create small down stage spaces in front of a sketched Tower of London and Westminster Abbey to make the setting clear. Behind that are gates and railings to separate the palace from the street. It’s engagingly imaginative.

So there’s a lot of charm and talent in this  competent show but somehow it lacks warmth and feels a bit flat. It never quite lifts beyond the sense that a bunch of good actors are doing their thing without quite transporting us or making us care quite as much as we should.

First published by Sardines https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/the-prince-and-the-pauper/

Ten people are putting on a live radio play so the format is a play-within-a-play. Thus we see them emerging from chairs in shadow to stand at downstage mics to deliver their lines. And the story their play tells is that of George Bailey, a businessman in trouble and contemplating suicide on Christmas Eve. An angel is sent – think of the ghosts in A Christmas Carol – from heaven to show him how impoverished and different the world would have been if he’d never existed.

Various things impressed me about this adeptly directed (Pauline Armour) production. First, the storytelling which could get very blurred and confusing is crystal clear. Second, the “radio studio” sound effects which we see created upstage by Jessica-Ann Jenner are impeccably synced with the action. Third, there’s a lot of doubling which relies on the sort of vocal versatility that radio requires and these talented actors have nailed it while also maintaining convincing American accents – although because it’s really a stage play that the audience is watching they also don a few hats, scarves and spectacles. Fourth, music is neatly dovetailed in to mark scene changes as befits a radio play. Fifth, it eventually packs in a bit of feel-good for Christmas which is much needed at present.

Howie Ripley as George finds a whole range of moods for him ending with anguished despair and, finally, joy at emerging from the vision and appreciating the life he has despite its difficulties. It’s a nuanced performance. And Bethan Boxall as his wife Mary (among other roles) – who puts me in mind of Michelle Dockery – seems, usefully,  to have several octaves in her speaking voice. I liked the growth of her character from carefree teenager to worried middle-aged mother of five.

Also outstanding, in a strong cast, is Maxine Edwards as Mr. Henry Potter, a sort of Shylock figure, successful in business waiting to snatch anything he can from George. Edwards is totally convincing as she switches from that to the assertive sheriff or young George along with a whole raft of other parts. Kerrin Roberts gives us a nice, camp Clarence – the angel trying to earn his wings by sorting out George.

Arriving without any expectations or preconceived ideas I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy a pretty engaging evening in the theatre. This was actually my first visit to Bromley Little Theatre although it’s usefully local to me. I’ve had it on my list for a while but have been thwarted by pandemics and things. I think I shall probably be a regular in future.

First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/its-a-wonderful-life/

Usually listed –  by people who feel the need to categorise – rather uneasily as a comedy, Measure for Measure is actually a pretty serious play although it descends close to farce in Acts 4 and 5 which is why the compulsive categorisers call it a ‘problem play’.

Blanche McIntyre’s 1970s take on it plays it for laughs. Her cast of eight (there’s some very accomplished doubling) squeeze every possible innuendo and comic reaction from the text which is adeptly cut with the addition of a line here and there or a changed word so make sure the story telling is as clear as it could be.

Sometimes the laughter, however, seems inappropriate. This play is at heart about the attempt of political leader to use his power seduce a young girl while at the same time ruthlessly condemning (to death) others who ‘fornicate’.  There’s nothing funny about that. The hypocrisy rings hideously, topically true. And there are some horribly familiar attitudes, “See that she has needful but not lavish means” says Angelo, coldly, of the heavily pregnant Juliet reminding me, on this occasion of many people’s attitudes to cold, wet migrants on beaches.

So, although this production is beautifully staged and the acting outstanding there are still problems in the play which are not addressed.

Hattie Ladbury makes a good unambiguously female Duke. Tall and cadaverous in appearance, intense and unsmiling she manipulates other people like a puppet master although it is, as ever, a puzzle why she puts Angelo in charge thereby putting the welfare of so many people at risk given what she knows of his background.

Georgia Landers’s Isabella is warmly righteous and fluent in her pleas for her brother’s life but she doesn’t quite bring out the unconscious eroticism of her lines and it’s hard to see quite why Angelo suddenly feels he must have her virginity.

In a strong cast Eloise Secker stands out as Pompey, flirting with the audience with insouciant insolence. She gives him a sense of undaunted wisdom which doesn’t always come through. Secker also gives us a wan, wistful Mariana looking like a young Diana, Princess of Wales – all blonde bob and hurt. And at the end she is forcibly married to a man who clearly doesn’t want her. Secker does the troubled mixed feelings well.

There’s a good performance from Gyuri Sarossy as Lucio too, a man too garrulous for his own good. Sarrossy watches, reacts and times his interjections totally convincingly. He also conveys Lucio’s friendship with Claudio and the contrasting coldness to Pompey effectively. It’s a gift of a part and Sarossy really runs with it.

I’m unsure about the comedy of the executioner struggling on with an axe as if we were in The Mikado or producing Raguzine’s head dripping with blood or various other moments contrived to make us laugh. An innocent man’s life is quite seriously at risk (“Be absolute for death”) and we shouldn’t be allowed to forget that.

All in all, though, it’s an entertaining evening but this account of the play but – and maybe that’s the essence of theatre – it asks more questions than it answers. I liked, though, the ending, in which ambiguity, incongruity and indecision is built into the text. Both Ladbury and Landers drive that home with eloquent facial expression.

The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse setting is exquisite, smaller than some pub theatres, and candle-lit – with the (mostly masked) audience packed in like sardines in an authentically Elizabethan/Jacobean way. They wanted vaccination status at the entrance. Otherwise it was a case of “Covid be damned” just as the first audience would, I suppose, have regarded the plague. I was puzzled by three groups of people separately walking out in the first half, though. Did they not like the play, the production, the crowding or the backless benches?

First published my Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/measure-for-measure-2/

I felt quite moved when I arrived at Frank Matcham’s stunningly beautiful Hackney Empire and saw the Jack and the Beanstalk screen. This was the first pantomime I’ve seen for two long years.

I think a lot of the audience felt like that too because there was a lot of excited whooping and a sense of excited relief.

In the event, once this decent, reliable panto got underway it felt as it we’d all been there yesterday – the comfort of the very familiar. Yes, they do The Twelve Days of Christmas (“and a bra that was made to hold three”) at a accelerating speed with several upward key changes, combine it with the slosh scene (“five custard pies”) and there’s splendid work from Mark Dickman’s fine five-piece band underneath it. Yes, we get a (very abbreviated) ghost scene and all the usual “oh yes you will” stuff as well as the obligatory sing along at the end so they can prepare the set and costume up for the finale.

But a successful panto needs some fresh material too. The ensemble cockroach number – a very slick tap dance – in the giant’s castle ticked lots of boxes for me as did the rescued harpist (Victoria Anderson) singing “An die Musik”. Bit of Schubert as a change from the running Queen gag with Tony Whittle doing an ongoing Freddie Mercury impression? Why not? – you can do anything in a panto which is one of the genre’s USPs.

Clive Rowe (who also co-directs with Tony Whittle) has been associated with the Hackney Empire panto for so long that he gets a round of applause as soon as he appears. He just has to stand still, flutter his eyelashes and show the retail bags (“Marks and Dentures”, “Dreggs” and the like) that his first costume is made of. He goes on, of course, to give the competent, practised performance that you’d expect.

Rochelle Sherona is interesting as Jack. None of the traditional thigh-slapping principal boy for her. Instead, in dungarees, she finds a sort of feisty vulnerability – and realisitic gender ambiguity – in the character. And, Urdang- trained, she dances beautifully which is unusual for someone in this role.

Kat B as Simple Simon grated on me at the start – too much anguished “pity me” and pathetic fall guy with a whining voice. But gradually he grew on me and he’s certainly an accomplished, slick performer who works well with others.

It’s a generally enjoyable evening and the little girl (maybe 9) next to me was clearly having a good time. At that age you don’t notice the cheap sets, the post pandemic reduction in production values, the lacklustre (silicone?) giant or that Clive Rowe has to put on a face shield to come down into the audience. It’s simply good to be there.

First published by Sardines: https://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/review/jack-and-the-beanstalk-10/