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Panto Dick is fun without flair
PANTO: DICK WHITTINGTON AND HIS CAT
Barbican
THE Barbican’s first ever pantomime begins with a bang but never really quite lives up to the promise of a show by the controversial gay playwright Mark Ravenhill, who created a storm a few years back with Shopping and F**king.
Instead, Dick Whittington And His Cat proceeds in a fairly predictable fashion with a selection of songs from heavyweights like Howard Goodall that never quite hit the spot.
The star of the night was clearly the Dame, with Roger Lloyd Pack, (pictured) who lives in Kentish Town, playing it like a kind of Michael Barrymore in drag. But even then his aura was somewhat dimmed by his overly languid and detached style. Some of his jokes were a bit too close to the knuckle, as well.
That said, Ravenhill and director Edward Hall, self-confessed panto afficianados, still manage to raise plenty of laughs from an audience determined to have some fun with a show that followed all the traditional pantomime rules.
They also leave us in no doubt, through sets and story telling, about Dick Whittington’s place in history as a true figure in 14th-century London whose tale has become embedded in folk memory, with a good measure of good versus evil thrown in.
Against the squeaky clean, thigh slapping Dick (Summer Strallen), there’s the villainous King Rat (Toby Sedgwick), while stock comic characters include the likes of Fairy BowBells (Debbie Chazen) and Totally Lazy Jack (Danny Worters).
Things warm up in the second half, where one of the best scenes involves the Dame and Jack attempting to cook a meal on board a ship caught in a storm.
It’s very well done and free of the self-consciousness of the rest of the show.
Until January 20
CNJ Booking Line
0870 0400070 |
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