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The Review - THEATRE by ZOE SANDERS
Published: 3 January 2008

Laughs galore but too much for scaredy cats

JACK AND THE BEANSTALK
Barbican theatre

JACK and the Beanstalk is a Christmas classic, and the Barbican’s panto version ticks all the boxes. In places the story of how Jack swaps poor Daisy the Cow for some magic beans is simply spectacular.
However, there are a few criticisms: the show times are not exactly child-friendly.
One or 5pm curtain calls are many family’s regular feeding hours for the wee bairns and the cafés were packed with children. And the Barbican is hardly a child-friendly theatre – lots of steps to negotiate and a five-minute schlep to the toilets.
The two-hour-plus running time is a long time for the under-fives to keep their bums on the seats, and for little ones the show is actually quite frightening.
And if you have a scaredy cat kid with you (as I did), the off-stage rumblings of a giant and the the clever set featuring a washing line with T-shirts and underwear was enough to put the heebie-jeebies up him.
But there are some marvellous moments: Jack, played by Helen Baker, is gorgeous, and made a most attractive hero. Baker’s stage credits include Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Thoroughly Modern Milly and the Grand Hotel.
On screen, she was in Anthony Minghella’s Camden-based drama Breaking and Entering and she clambered up the Beanstalk and saved Princess Melody. Her thigh length boots – changed three times during the show – and fishnet stockings kept a grandfather with us in raptures and hanging on her every word.
The set provides a wonderful backdrop for a top-class cast and Royal Court writer Jonathan Harvey piles on the laughs for adults as well as children, although at times there was a sense that with this being a panto it wouldn’t have hurt if he had hammed it up a bit more and not made it quite so clever in places.
However, his characters are fun: Mel Giedroyc of Mel and Sue fame plays the flying fairy godmother Fairy Liquid, and her entrance is superb.
Little Britain star Steve Furst pops up as the baddie Beastly Boris, the giant’s sidekick who does his bidding.
Poor Boris becomes, eventually, a reformed character, telling the audience that he was dragged into bad ways after being born with the face of a classic henchman.
He gets to marry Princess Melody’s lady in waiting, so its all good in the end.
Until January 20

CNJ Booking line 0870 040 0070

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