“An excellent introduction to the theatre, storytelling and the pantomime form” Macastory’s Jack and the Beanstalk is fresh, fun, and a little bit different.
📍Scottish Storytelling Centre
📅 18 Dec to 23 Dec
💷 £10
🕖 Varies by day, check when booking
🕖 Running time (approx.): 55 minutes
🎬 Created by: Macastory
🗣️ Performers: Ron Fairweather, Fergus McNicol, Claire McNicol
🎂 2+
🎭 Wheelchair Accessible Venue, Wheelchair Accessible Toilets, Audio Induction Loop
This year, Macastory are bringing quite a unique panto offering to delight audiences of every age at the Scottish Storytelling Centre. Yes, there’s a suitably extravagant dame, a principal boy, a costumed cow, and plenty of the requisite ‘it’s behind you’s’ and ‘oh no he isn’t’s’. However, Jack and The Beanstalk is also a training pantomime. That’s right, this is a production designed to educate its attendees in how to be a responsive, engaged audience. Far from the slightest hint of pedantry, it’s a whole bunch of fun, and in an age of media (including corporate pantomime) which encourages passivity in its viewers, utterly invaluable.
Macastory — storytellers Ron Fairweather and Fergus McNicol — have been producing and performing work since 2003, and are particularly familiar faces around school assembly halls nationwide. For this year’s pantomime they are joined by Claire McNicol, taking their cadre of professional storytellers to 3, and providing a principal boy to play the titular Jack. The QR spoke with the team just as the run was getting underway.
The three enjoy the sort of chemistry only born of decades of familiarity; McNicol may be a guest star, but she is married to one of the team (in the spirit of the season, I’ll leave you to guess who). They work well to induct an audience full of single digit aged newbies into the mysteries of the art, but never so that the story is lost. No, this is a very affectionate take on Jack and the Beanstalk, and it hits all the right beats.
Unrestricted by a cast of 3, Fergus and Ron don many a hat (and cow patterned onesie), to create the world for Claire‘s Jack to travel through. There’s a sassy Daisy the cow, a besinquined fairy god-father, a profligate high-haired mother, and a despicable giant. There’s even a touch of puppetry in the form of a talking crow (unremarkable in panto land) who explains that Jack isn’t a thief, but that the giant robbed his mum many years ago, thus explaining their poverty (and not her penchant for hat buying).
Parents needn’t worry, this is ethical redistribution of wealth, and not a bad influence on impressionable minds.
Whilst much of the action and ‘fee fi fo fum’ goodness is played out in traditional style, the trio’s storytelling chops certainly come good when creating a sense of journey and place. There’s a simple, absolutely adequate set to riff on, but the world of Jack and the Beanstalk is very much a storyteller’s creation. Which isn’t to say there isn’t plenty of action, on the contrary each time Jack climbs the beanstalk to steal – sorry, redistribute – more of the giant’s wealth, the audience is brought to their feet to join him in the effort!
Further, where many seasonal shows make claims to ‘all family’ entertainment, this show achieves it. It’s rich in child-friendly humour and just the right level of silliness, but there’s also a knowing and delighted sense of absurdity to assure more mature watchers of a merry old time. A kid opting to immediately betray Jack to everyone who’s looking for him might be ignored in another production, but here it’s acknowledged with a devilish aside.
Perhaps there could be just a little more menace in the show, just a wee dollop of threat to make the audience believe Jack might be in some real danger. Particularly for younger audiences, it might pull them in a little more, and make them more concerned for Jack’s chances of success. The giant isn’t quite boo-worthy enough is probably what I’m trying to say.
However, Macastory’s Jack and the Beanstalk is a fabulous show, put on by three expert performers. It’s fresh, fun, and at 55 minutes doesn’t stretch the attention spans of the developing brain past breaking point. It’s also an excellent introduction to the theatre, storytelling and the pantomime form.
Photography Credits: Macastory)
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