It’s cold outside, the Christmas lights are twinkling – could that be panto season creeping up behind you? (oh yes it is!)
OUR VERDICT
It would be an ice-hearted Scrooge indeed who could fail to enjoy Sleeping Beauty at the Yvonne Arnaud.
It’s a funny, well-written treat with plenty of laughs, gorgeous sets and great performances across the board – the ideal tonic if you’re suffering from a case of Christmas fatigue.
The story of sleeping beauty, that most passive of princesses, has been lightly and effectively modernized for this production. Our heroine is reimagined as an empowered-scientist princess, chafing at the constraints put in place by her doting father. Her prince is a social media guru (@ecoprince) who makes achingly sincere vlogs about the environment and peppers his speech with hashtags.
But the panto also has plenty of the traditional elements we know and love. There’s a dame, a bumbling magician, a spectacular and energetic rendition of the 12 days of Christmas - as well as custard pies to the face and audience participation galore.
Best of all we have an arch and dastardly villain, Kit Hesketh-Harvey’s Carabosse, who stalks the stage joking dryly about Brexit and calling on unsuspecting audience members to act as her henchmen.
In fact, there wasn’t a weak link in this upbeat and energetic cast.
The X-factor semi-finalist Holly Tandy brought her beautiful voice to the role of Sleeping Beauty, delivering a heroine we could root for.
Peter Gordan as Nanny Fanny brought plenty of slapstick comedy, while Jamie Brook made a loveable Muddles (his magic tricks were genuinely impressive!).
Yolande Ovide and Michael Sheldon did well with the comparatively straight roles of Fairy Stardust and King Cuthbert.
A special mention goes to Andy Smith, who made the usually dull role of love interest his own with his priggish, sincere millennial of a social media prince.
Overall it’s a marvellous combination of slick production values and high-spirited chaos, with some genuinely funny and well-observed jokes along the way. A memorable way to while away a dull winter evening.
6 December 2019 - 5 January 2020 (book here)
