Review: Dick Whittington, Harrogate Theatre, until January 15 2017. Box office: 01423 502116 or at harrogatetheatre.co.uk DICK Whittington marks Phil Lowe’s tenth year in the pantomime director’s seat at Harrogate Theatre and his eighth show with co-writer David Bown, the theatre’s chief executive.
Lowe and Bown know how to balance “tradition” with topicality and modernity each winter, although the lack of a show-opening song is a surprising omission that leads to a slightly slow start until silly billy Tim Stedman makes his entry in his 17th Harrogate show. More of him later.
The harsh economics of 21st British theatre keep the cast to a magnificent seven and the necessary ruthlessness means Alderman Fitzwarren has breathed his last already, handing over his ship to daughter Alice (Harriet Hare), who has added a new bossiness to a once demure role.
On the one hand, Dick Whittington is still a proper, hands-on-hips principal boy (Harriet Harper) with a loyal cat (Alice Barrott’s Tommy); on the other hand, good and evil’s representatives have had a switch-over. Fairy Bow Bells is a now a cor-blimey, Cockney rhyming-slang cheeky chappy far happier than anyone in EastEnders, played in lively knees-up fashion by Chris Chilton, whose every “Oi Oi” exclamation is met with a “Saveloy” from the audience and in a turn a “Nice” from Chilton. Only in pantomime can you have such an exchange, and as with cricket, you will never be able to explain its rules and regs to an alien invader.
Less successfully, King Rat has become Queen Rat (Katy Dean) in a novelty double act with a puppet rat on her head that doesn’t quite have the rat-a-tat-tat it needs, although Dean is a pearl of a singer, the best in the show in fact.
Howard Chadwick’s psychic Sarah the Cook has the pick of Foxton’s fabulous designs, full of visual wit (including a Mornington Crescent Tube station sign for devotees of a certain BBC Radio 4 quiz show) and Chadwick’s brassy, ginger-nutted dame works wonderfully well with Stedman as her “lazy” son, Idle Jack.
He must be the least idle Idle Jack you could imagine: a constant blur of energy, verbal gymnastics, naughty-step daft-lad antics and daft-lad audience rapport that has the teenage girls in the row behind cooing “Ooh, I love him”. It certainly makes a change from idolising One Direction. “I managed to touch him,” one says later, all excited after the second-act run around the auditorium.
Nick Lacey’s flamboyant musical direction and David Kar Hing Lee’s choreography have plenty of impact too; the Under The Sea ultraviolet lighting scene is a playful delight, while the frantic 12 Days Of Shopping song is a slapstick high point where Stedman suffers for his art most generously, coming under attack from every cast member and even joining in himself.
By the way, next winter’s pantomime will be Beauty And The Beast. What’s more, tickets are on sale already!
Dick Whittington, Harrogate Theatre, until January 15 2017. Box office: 01423 502116 or at harrogatetheatre.co.uk
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