REVIEW: Proper traditional panto in Portsmouth, great fun, brilliantly done
and on Freeview 262 or Freely 565
The great panto resurgence continues apace at Portsmouth’s New Theatre Royal with a cracking show packed with everything you’d want a panto to have.
No one is showboating. There are no variety acts shoe-horned in. Instead we get a proper pantomime with all the traditional pantomime values, not least a story told with wit and energy by a company working wonderfully well together. Adding to the fun is an abundance of truly awful jokes – something lacking in other pantos this year but absolutely crucial to the genuine item we are being treated to here.
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Hide AdLewes Roberts is excellent in his triple role, first the arrogant, preening prince, next the thoughtful, appreciative beast combatting his anger and then finally the decent chap we know he’s always going to be. Plus there’s a real wow moment in that final transformation. You wonder at what you’ve just seen. It’s really quite some flip.
Breanna Bradshaw is a heartfelt Beauty – beautiful inside and out and the perfect foil for our reformed beastie. Terrific too from Chris Aukett as Dame Dorothea, a total natural in the role, effortlessly witty and a voracious man eater (pity poor Dave in the front row!) Excellent too from Christian James as Potty Pierre, again a natural comic and a huge part of the night’s fun and laughter. Together they have a smashing time – literally!
Rachel Stanley is great too, gleefully malevolent as Malevolent, delivering the rhyming couplets with evil relish and great good humour – certainly the best of this year’s crop of panto villains.
And what makes it all spark is that they all work so skilfully and generously together, backed up by a lovely team of dancers with the whole thing enhanced by impressive costumes and some attractive sets. The choice of songs is excellent and the sound balance is spot on, something which hasn’t remotely been the case in other venues this year. Here the band isn’t just first class; crucially it manages not to drown out the performers.
Rounding it all off, the wedding scene finale and the mass bop at the end will certainly send you home happy. This is joyful, traditional panto delivered very, very nicely indeed.
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