London's best pantomimes

Evening Standard   03.12.07

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From some classic Charles Dickens to Stephen Fry's racy Old Vic production, Fiona Mountford rounds up this year's bumper crop of festive family shows.

POSH PANTO

Cinderella
Old Vic, SE1
Sir Ian McKellen may currently be giving us his Lear, but it is his take on another great role in the classical canon that will really go down in theatre history. Yes, McKellen's Widow Twankey for the Old Vic in 2004 and 2005 suddenly made "It's behind you!" an acceptable statement again and with one rub of the magic lamp, the genre of posh panto came into being. If anything, the Vic has gone even posher for this year's Cinderella, enlisting Stephen Fry to write the script and Oscar-winner Anne Dudley to compose the music. Following McKellen's lead, proper actors, rather than just old lags from regional rep, now embrace the genre, and so Pauline Collins heads the cast.
4 Dec-20 Jan (0870 060 6628, www.oldvictheatre.com)

Jack and the Beanstalk
Barbican, EC2
The Barbican also poshed up last year courtesy of Mark Ravenhill's Dick Whittington; now it's the turn of playwright Jonathan Harvey and Olivier Award-winning musical writers Stiles and Drew. Comedians Steve Furst, best known for the Orange mobile phone ads, and Mel Giedroyc will turn out as Beastly Boris and Fairy Liquid in Jack and the Beanstalk.
Tonight until 12 Jan (0845 120 7550, www.barbican.org.uk)

JUST LIKE IT OUGHT TO BE

Dick Whittington
Hackney Empire, E8
Writer-director Susie McKenna usually guarantees that a December night in Hackney is one of the jolliest in town. Her snappy scripts gleefully embrace all panto's daft conventions, rather than holding them at arm's length with tongs, as many others do. The delightful Clive Rowe returns this year as Sarah the Cook.
Tonight until 12 Jan (020 8985 2424, www.hackneyempire.co.uk)

Cinderella
Richmond Theatre
The last role Nigel Havers played at Richmond was Maxim de Winter in Rebecca, a part one imagines didn't call for as much banter with the audience as will the Baron in Cinderella.
7 Dec-20 Jan (0870 060 6651, www.richmondtheatre.net)

Snow White
Wimbledon Theatre
It's the sort of gloriously incongruous pairing that only panto could throw up: Ross Kemp, using all his Grant Mitchell muscle as the evil Henchman, goes head to head with Bobby Davro as Muddles the Jester.
7 Dec-20 Jan (0870 060 6646, www.newwimbledontheatre.co.uk)

Mother Goose
Queen's, Hornchurch
Each year, the Queen's admirably shuns a ragtag assortment of blokes from the telly, and instead uses its resident ensemble of actormusicians to concoct some delightful home-grown fare. Marks, too, for the deployment of sweet-but-not-emetic local kids.
Tonight until 12 Jan (01708 443333, www.queens-theatre.co.uk)

WHAT THE DICKENS?

A Christmas Carol
Young Vic, SE1
Dickens's magnificent narrative is here transposed by Anglo-South African director Mark Dornford-May to a contemporary Cape Town township. The spectre of the Aids epidemic hovers, but a group of 30 joyously irrepressible performers present an astonishing blend of speech and song, English and Xhosa.
Tonight until 19 Jan (020 7922 2922, www.youngvic.org)

The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby Parts One and Two
Gielgud, W1
Critics, myself included, raved over this restaging of David Edgar's adaptation when it appeared at the Chichester Festival Theatre last summer. Now it's coming to London: 27 actors play more than 150 parts in six and a half hours of gripping drama that opens up the world of Dickens to young and old alike.
5 Dec-27 Jan (0870 950 0915, www.nicholasnicklebyplay.com)

YOU'VE READ THE BOOK

Beauty and the Beast
Lyric Hammersmith, W6
Lyric Christmas shows tend to stand at something of an angle to the conventional and are all the better for it. Those tireless theatrical innovators, Told by an Idiot, who had great fun here previously with Philip Pullman's The Firework Maker's Daughter, have taken Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bête as their inspiration.
Tonight until 5 Jan (08700 500 511, www.lyric.co.uk)

Hergé's Adventures of Tintin
Playhouse, WC2
Evening Standard Award-winning director Rufus Norris is at the helm for David Greig's adaptation of Tintin in Tibet, first seen at the Barbican for Christmas 2005.
6 Dec-12 Jan (0870 060 6631, www.tintintheshow.co.uk)

Marianne Dreams
Almeida, N1
The Almeida launches itself into the family market for the first time this year. Royal Ballet choreographer Will Tuckett directs actors and dancers in an adaptation of Catherine Storr's 1958 novel.
14 Dec-26 Jan (020 7359 4404, www.almeida.co.uk)

 

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