Jack and the Beanstalk

The fun started before the curtain opened, with the usual announcement about silencing mobile phones - except it wasn’t the usual announcement; after the phones and cameras, it went off into a comical list of other domestic appliances.  The recording was by Lee Redwood who, in addition to being MD (and, therefore, I assume creating very good backing tracks), wrote the script and played Dame Trott.

One of the things I particularly liked about the script was the way it dealt with the sale of Daisy the cow for a handful of beans.  Doing that as a simple exchange puts Jack into the role of the gullible fool rather than the giant-fighting hero.  Redwood’s script got around that problem by a neat piece of grifting from Fleshcreep (Martin Pitman in an excellent, physical portrayal of pantomime villainy) in which Jack was given gold, which he checked before exchanging it for “more gold” which he didn’t check, thus receiving the beans.  Jack (Shannon Fisher) has been tricked, but he stays the hero, leaving the daft comedy role to his brother Simple Simon played by Jack Haberfield, delivering a series of comic asides across the footlights whilst ineptly attempting to romance the princess’s maid, Leila (the expressive Issy Campbell).

The giant was played by Chris March, enhanced by a pair of enormous shoes (to the extent that at first I wondered if he was on stilts).  I think the production might have made his first entrance more dramatic by giving it more of a build-up, and more anticipation from the other characters.

There was lots of fine singing - solos from Jack and from Fairy Daffodil (Emily Jane Change), a lovely duet between Jack and Princess Apricot (Camilla Pillinger) and choruses (from which I took home an “ear worm” in the form of “We go together”).  Normally the purpose of the “community song” near the end of a panto is to cover costume changes for the walk-down - not least to get the dame to put on something extravagant.  As it was, after a serious of over-the-top costumes and wigs, Dame Trott appeared in “The Twelve Days of Panto” along with Leila, Simple Simon and the King (John Langridge).  Even so, with hardly a moment to change, Dame Trott was back in another fabulous frock for the walk-down.

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