Review: Jack and The Beanstalk: A New Moooosical – Dundee Rep

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Any show which gives the opportunity for the audience to meet a couple of real Highland cows at the start is onto a winner – how can you feel anything else but elated by such utter bovine gorgeousness? So writes Catherine Coutts for theQR.co.uk…

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I was so distracted by the Highland cows that I forgot to read my programme properly and thought for the first half that I was at a pantomime.

I grew a bit confused as the performance wore on: many of the main pantomime staples (outrageous dame, cheeky chappy, singalong) were missing, but a quick check revealed that this is neither a pantomime nor a musical, but both – which seems a very accurate description.

The show opens with a pantomime horse dancing onto the stage (I did say it was both). The horse is revealed to be our heroine, Caroline – Jack’s cow. Caroline explains that this is to be her story, in which Jack will feature, and takes us back to the beginning. With the aid of puppets, we meet young Jack and Caroline. Caroline’s puppet works well (operated by Connor Going) but I was a bit confused by an adult Jack using a child Jack puppet and felt it was a missed opportunity to give local youngsters their first taste of professional theatre.

Suzie McAdam gives a powerhouse performance as the loyal but gullible Caroline – she has the rare warmth to connect with the audience without it feeling forced or false, and an amazing voice. As the name suggests, this is a new musical, written by acclaimed writing duo Jonathan O’Neill and Isaac Savage. The script and score are both excellent (you can see why Dundonian A-lister Brian Cox has agreed to voice the Giant).

As seasoned fairytale readers and pantomime-goers will know, Jack trades Caroline in for a handful of magic beans, which grow into an enormous beanstalk, reaching up to the clouds. The locals and the Lord Provost are delighted at the growth, planning to open it as a tourist attraction/café, with only Jack’s mother Sherry (Laura Lovemore) protesting about the potential danger. However, Sherry is a vacuous creature, quickly won over by the temptation of hard cash which will allow her to move to Broughty Ferry (as part of the panto/musical hybrid there are a lot of Dundonian jokes).

Meanwhile, Caroline has been taken to a petting zoo, but breaks out with the help of her new friends – Henrietta the hen (Lucy Hutchison), Lady Fluffington III – a llama (Lorraine Graham) and Truffles the pig (Mairi Barclay). Barclay steals the show with her deadpan humour and genuine concern for Caroline, who cannot see that Jack (Ronan O’Hara) is not the good friend she thinks he is. The audience is devastated for the good-hearted Caroline when, on her return, he heads off to Benidorm with Sherry to a hotel where “pets are not allowed”.

We are then introduced to the hilarious golden harp (David Rankine). Rankine’s energy and skill lift the audience up from the start of the second half, when together with Caroline, he climbs the beanstalk. Caroline’s guilt at stealing from the Giant helps her see that she cannot continue her relationship with Jack as it is and her resolve hardens. However, Jack – together with the three new friends – also climbs the beanstalk. What are his intentions? Will he do the right thing by Caroline or will she have to be the stronger mammal again?

This show is too good to be a one-off in Dundee, and would seem to lend itself well to travelling to other parts of the UK (local in-jokes would be easy to swap), but I feel the production values would be wasted competing against the much-loved but formulaic traditional panto. This show is likely to appeal to slightly older children and families – it is really a musical with nods to pantomime and a blessed relief to anyone who feels they have maybe watched their share of pantos over the years.

That said, my inner five-year-old loved playing with the Christmas puddings at the end and, no matter how much effort O’Neill and Savage have put into crafting an exquisite piece with pace and wonderful songs, nothing scores with a youthful audience more than an onstage fart – and there are plenty of those!

It was a wonderful evening – please go to see it and then you can brag to your friends about how you saw it in its first run when it starts breaking box office records elsewhere.

Featured Image: DundeeRep_Jack&theBeanstalk__©JessShurte

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Jack and the Beanstalk: A New Moosical runs at Dundee Rep until Tuesday 30 December 2025. For tickets or more information, click here.

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