Pantomime isn’t normally this reviewer’s cup of tea, perhaps if the average offering were more akin to this smash of a comedy extravaganza, I’d change my mind?
Oh yes I would.
📍 King’s Theatre, Edinburgh
📅 SAT 30 NOV TO SUN 16 JAN 2022
🕖 Matinee, and Evening performances, see here for details.
🕖 Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes (includes a 20 min. interval)
👥 Director: Ed Curtis
👥 Musical Director: Andy Pickering
👥 Sound Director: Richard Brooker
💰 From £21.50
🎭 Audio Description Fri 10 December 7.00PM, Thu 16 December 2.00PM, Sat 08 January 2.00PM
🎭BSL Sign Language Fri 10 December 7.00PM, Sat 08 January 2.00PM
🎭Relaxed performance Friday 7 January 2.00PM
Let’s get the narrative out of the way first, shall we? There’s not much of one. There’s the bare bones of the sleeping beauty story, just enough to hang a casting call on, and that’s about it. In the normal course of affairs, a critic might be expected to bemoan this lack, but in truth there’s just enough structure, and momentum to writer Alan McHugh & Crossroads Pantomime’s Sleeping Beauty that it’s forgivable.
Sia Dauda makes for a charming, and sufficiently independent Princes Aurora – Sleeping Beauty — a leading lady with far more agency that poor old Goldilocks had in 2019. This greater attention to female representation prevails throughout the entire production. Clare Gray, daughter to the sorely missed Andy, plays Aurora’s scooter-riding cousin, Princess Narcissa, with charming cheek. Then we have The Good Fairy, played by one woman music box Nicola Meehan, who delivers the biggest, straight music numbers in the show with professional ease.
With a little more of a skeleton story (it’s Sleeping Beauty, more or less, just without a handsome prince) to hang their patter on, the trio of Allan Stewart, Grant Stott, and Jordan Young, as heroic dame Queen May, her villainous sister Carabosse, and Muddles the Jester respectively, prove far more effective. Their material is sharper, and most certainly pitched as much towards the adults in attendance, as their munchkin offspring. Not every sitting will feature such gloriously fluffed lines, but I suspect there’s a season’s worth of enjoyment in ‘pythons, hissing in a pit.’
The humour is highly local, but manages to avoid playing to the “in crowd” too much. The physical comedy is hilarious, and though chaos threatens, it never takes over. This is a good show, which plays to it strengths, and doesn’t overstay its welcome.
The ensemble are all perfectly game, and the music, if it’s not precisely inspired, is certainly adequate to the task, and The King’s Theatre Orchestra certainly make a fulsome sound.
I continue to think it’s a true pity that this model of panto reduces audience interaction to a bare minimum. I’m not sure it’s even a panto if there’s no cry of “it’s behind you,” or “oh, no it’s not.” There were an audible chorus of children audibly straining to call out these familiar phrases. I’d need to have attended with a kid to check, but I also suspect the comedy is perhaps a little too biased towards adult tastes. That said, whenever the action invited boo-ing or cheering, there was plenty of evidence the younger cadre were engaged and entertained. That Sleeping Beauty was in danger of receiving 5 stars, is a testament to how much I laughed, and the palpably warm atmosphere created on stage and transmitted out into the auditorium.
There’s certainly plenty of fun here in panto-land for the whole family. Don’t expect any sense of peril, or narrative tension whatsoever. If you have a child who is minded to fear giants, and hide from witches, this is the safe panto for you in particular. Do expect a somewhat panto-themed review show, replete with local gags, well staged songs and enough flash, glitz, glam, and bam to appease the younger attendees.
For tickets, and more information on this production, please click here.
By
By
