⭐⭐⭐

One of those pantos which is rooted in its own local traditions, this show is light on jokes but strong on story telling. When I was a child I used to sit there squirming at the “silliness” and wishing they’d get on with the story. The seven-year-old me would have liked Kenneth Alan Taylor’s take on Sleeping Beauty (his 37th pantomime for Nottingham Playhouse). The grown-up me found it a refreshing change too although it certainly wouldn’t be everybody’s cup of tea.

Unusually for a venue of this size, Nottingham Playhouse makes its own costumes and sets (designed by Tim Meacock for this show) in onsite workshops. And they’re delightful – so much more original and attractive than hired- in ones. Toyin Ayedun-Alase as Maleficent, for examples, wears a striking, shimmery, panelled, pewter dress with epaulettes. Can I have it when she’s finished with it? John Elkinton as the Dame looks really rather nice in a series of get-ups which are showily stylish, in good fabrics, rather than grotesque. In also liked the black, horned costumes for the ensemble supporting Maleficent too.

A word of praise for the “ghost” scene too. Instead of the usual repeated song we get a tune played by the band every time the monster comes in. It’s a sort of extended leitmotiv which keeps shifting up a semitone. And the tusked, toothed monster – a bit Gruffalo-ish – is great.

It’s a while since I’ve seen a principal boy played, in the traditional way by a woman (Louise Dalton – good) and it puzzled the special needs boy in front of me. What it does, in 2019, is to make the central falling in love feel like a rather modern same sex relationship as if tradition is effortlessly adapting itself to the 21st Century.

A four-piece band in the pit plays a wide variety of music for this show which nips along from Prokofiev to Oklahoma!, with bits of rap, lots of other songs and musical references in between. And it is noticeable that every member of this cast – some of whom have done Nottingham Playhouse panto many times before – is a good singer. Tim Frater, for instance, as Jerry the Jester, can really hit the notes as well as being a convincing actor. Darren Southwaite as King Hubert and Rebecca Little as his wife Gertrude deliver a show stopping duet in the second half.

This is a gentle, understated pantomime. There’s nothing raucous, vulgar or brash about it. Arguably it falls short of full panto values but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Well, you can always rely on NYT Rep Company to come up with something gloriously ‘other’. In the hands of Kate Kennedy, whose script brings the play down to ninety minutes without interval, and director Matt Harrison, who clearly thinks a long way outside the box, this is definitely a Dream for late 2019.

We’re in a northern seaside town – Whitby, maybe – run by a councillor (Theseus) entering into a chilly coalition with a very disdainful Hypolita in order to run the place. Theseus’s daughter Hermia (yes, that’s right) is refusing to make the alliance he wants … and we’re off. Sort of. It won’t appeal to die-hard traditionalists but I loved it.

An ice-cream stall which can be turned to provide a red leather banquette reminiscent of a seaside coffee bar and a stage full of anchored helium balloons gently bobbing ten feet up (designer Camilla Clarke) create a lot of atmosphere – like the neon patterned lights on the back wall.

It’s a stroke of narrative genius to make Helena a young man because it adds another whole layer of nuanced humour to what is already probably Shakespeare’s funniest play – as well as embracing our own era of celebrated diversity. Lysander (Billy Hinchcliff – fine actor) is, in this version, evidently unsure which way he bats so the drugged infatuation in the wood is quite something

Some of these young actors – and this is the third show I’ve seem them in as they complete their repertory season – are seriously talented and I’m certain we shall see a lot more of them. Jemima Mayala, as Bottom, beams, overacts, reacts, struts, simpers and commands the stage for every second she’s on it. Her timing is spot on. It’s an utterly delightful performance.

Sarah Lussack is excellent as Peter Quince trying to control her company of dreadful actors. She uses a rather good crisp manner – her Quince probably teaches drama in the local comp. I also loved Jadie Rose Hobson’s gritty Titania and the cool distance that Alice Franziska brings to Hypolita. Ella Dacres creates a lovely bespectacled, long suffering but assertive Puck, neatly clad in red check jacket.

This A Midsummer Night’s Dream is also an ensemble piece involving most of the company in ‘choral’ moments including the Mechanicals’ burgomask and a sprightly hip-hop “jig” at the end. The way in which the company works together so effectively is very much a part of what makes this show memorable.

National Youth Theatre Rep Company is a nine-month commitment for sixteen NYT auditioned members aged 18-25. It is presented as an alternative drama school and there’s bursary support. I hope lots of agents and casting directors see this show because these young actors deserve to be snapped up.

⭐⭐⭐

Dandini is usually a bit peripheral in pantomime versions of Cinderella. But if you have a dancer of the calibre of lithe Ian Waite (eight years as a Strictly Come Dancing pro) then it makes sense to focus on him as director Michael Howcroft does here. Every movement the willowy Waite makes is compelling watching. He is definitely the star of this show.

Also strong are Nicole Faraday as a cackling wicked stepmother, a larger than life baddie in scarlet velvet and Mark Jones as a Buttons with the right combination of cheeky-chappie stage presence and warm pathos.

Katie Pritchard as the Fairy Godmother and Mark Read as Prince Charming are both exceptionally fine singers and their sung numbers are high spots. Naomi Wilkinson’s Cinderella manages to push a little way past the weak put-upon stereotype and assert herself occasionally although my favourites in the role have, over the years, taken this angle much further.

Oliver Broad and Jake Snowdon as the ugly sisters feel a bit underused and understated although they’re effective when they dance together with incongruous nimbleness and they look terrific in their finale black and white (costume design by Eve Wilkinson).

An imaginative breadth of live music underpins this show. It ranges from ballet with elegant numbers choreographed by Danielle Drayton to modern pop numbers with a sprinkling of our old friend “Trad”. A three-piece band (MD Simon Goldring) does well in the pit and the woodwind work (Kevin Parker) is a real stand out.

The show is, however, let down by its lacklustre script. It isn’t funny enough. Written by James Tully and James Ellis, based on an original version by Nick George it limps along with too many tired old jokes and a lot of would-be comedy which too often falls flat.

⭐⭐⭐

The title tells it as it is – with a bit of hyperbole. In theory this show ought to be bitterly disjointed. You can’t make a successful, integrated two hours of theatre out of a series of twenty or so very short two-hander sketches can you? Well actually you can. In practice, Craig Taylor’s play(s), under Laura Keefe’s imaginative direction is/are pleasingly entertaining – original and faintly quirky.

Based on eavesdroppings and situational ideas these fragments are beautifully observed and that truthfulness is what makes the piece flow: from a pair of council employees litter picking in a North London park, to a mother and daughter in a Russell Square pub or a gay man in a Manchester hospital after a botched suicide whose visiting mother will discuss anything but his sexuality. Then are a couple of theatre cloakroom attendants nicking peppermints from coat pockets, an elderly lady with dementia being visited by a care assessor, a father in a park with a child who’s developed a fear of CTV cameras, two football fans and .. on it goes.

The linking device is two fold. First there’s a chatty voiceover who keeps dictating the situations like a theatre director settting improv tasks. That has the neat advantage of informing the audience exactly where we are and what’s happening. Second we’re inside a game of bingo and each time the situation changes a new number flashes up. To reinforce the point the audience are given bingo cards and invited to join in a quick game at the beginning of the second half.

Emma Barclay and Alec Nicholls are a talented, very convincing pair switching accents and persona of both sexes as they wriggle in and out of onion layers of simple costumes, grab props and shunt and pieces around Ceci Calf’s versatile set.

Playwright Craig Taylor is a Canadian who now lives in London. Having started writing short scenes inspired by observation in Canada he continued in Britain and eventually, ten years ago, published a book of 95 miniplays from which companies can pick and mix to create a coherent piece of their own – exactly what has happened here. Versions of A Million Tiny Plays About Britain have been performed all over the world.

It isn’t Hamlet or Medea obviously but there is a wide range of humanity in these plays. We all know the people Taylor depicts and that’s what holds the attention.

Alec Nicholls and Emma Barclay at Jermyn Street Theatre. Photo: Robert Workman