★★★★

“it’s a joy to watch the exuberant camaraderie spread among the cast”

When Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve’s “La Belle et la Bête” was first published in the early eighteenth century, it rapidly entered into folklore, spreading beyond its native France to Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, Southern and Eastern Asia and North and South America. You could say worldwide, I guess. Along the way it adopted many different titles, but we all know it by its literal translation, “Beauty and the Beast”. Why am I telling you this? You already know. Embedded in childhood and then reinforced in adulthood through stage and screen, the story is like a comfort blanket for us; a seasonal favourite – instantly familiar.

Familiar, that is, until writers Jon Bradfield and Martin Hooper get their filthy little fingers on it. The story’s path does kind of lead you from start to finish, but its twisting, staggering, drunken meanderings will trip you up from the outset. ‘Losing the plot’ is an apt phrase here. It’s best just to follow blindly and go with the flow. Though you’re still likely to lose your footing, for you’ll be creasing up with laughter. You simply won’t have time, nor the inclination, to scrutinise the storyline.

We are in the Scottish hamlet of Lickmanochers (neighbouring village, Suckmacoch, is just across the valley). The eponymous ‘Beauty’ is now Bertie, who helps run the town’s only petrol station/general store along with his sister and overbearing mother. They each seem to be looking for love, or rather just the raunchy side effects. This is “Beauty and the Beast: A Horny Love Story” after all. Some may argue it’s nonsense, but that just shows a lack of imagination. It goes without saying, surely, that our protagonists will end up on a North Sea oil rig staffed by pop band Village People’s failed auditionees. Via the beast’s castle of course. The beast is called Charlie (a pretty sexy beast, mind, if you happen to go for the hirsute look). Bertie’s sister, Bonnie, hits it off with good fairy, Juno, but by now Bertie is too busy rescuing his mum, Flora, from the beast’s castle to notice. Charlie’s brother, the villainous Cornelius, is responsible for his beastly curse. True love will put it all to rights, with the help of magic plums, origami table decorations that are actually legal documents pertinent to the plot, adult jokes-a-plenty, some cracking songs and dollops of cream pies flung into the audience.

It’s all over the top, but the cast perform with a restraint that allows the clever witticisms to land perfectly alongside the obvious jokes. The songs are sassy – hilariously warped Disney pastiches – while the dialogue is strewn with filmic and theatre references, many of which may be missed; but don’t worry – there’s plenty to go round. And it’s a joy to watch the exuberant camaraderie spread among the cast. Matt Kennedy plays Bertie with a wide-eyed innocence – like a children’s television presenter who lets his scandalous side slip once the cameras stop rolling. Laura Anna-Mead, as his sapphic sister, is a cheeky wee lass that Dani Mirels’ Juno understandably finds irresistible. Chris Lane is all moustachioed villainy as the baddie Cornelius and Keanu Adolphus Johnson’s beast is an unexpected heartthrob. Many in the audience might wonder why Bertie would want to reverse the curse on this dashing castle-dweller. At the heart of the show is Matthew Baldwin as Flora. The epitome of the ‘dame’, Baldwin is ‘extraordinaire’; holding the audience in the palm of his hands with a seasoned ease, while sporting some delightfully outlandish costumes (designer Robert Draper provides the sartorial icing on the cake).

Billed as a queer pantomime, it out spins its classification. The irreverence and humour is obviously targeted, but the unashamedly adult humour is universal. The theatre company, ‘He’s Behind You’, are behind this show and it has the balance spot on. Anybody can in indulge in the mischievous magic. Well – almost anybody. This ‘horny love story’ is not what you’d call a family show. But it welcomes you into its own naughty little ménage. Gorgeously gay – whatever dictionary you’re using to define the word.

THE DAUGHTER OF TIME

Charing Cross Theatre

★★★

“The whole thing ambles along like a Wolseley 6/90 – reliable, well-upholstered and stately in its way”

To the surprise of a modern audience, the NHS in 1950 apparently afforded a patient a spacious room, a brace of sassy nurses, use of the good stationery and endless weeks of convalescence – all for a broken leg.

Admittedly, the broken leg is attached to a bona fide hero – Scotland Yard detective Alan Grant (Rob Pomfret) who is bothered, bored and self-pitying, having acquired the injury in a failed chase.

At 50, he is staring down the barrel of an enforced retirement. What he needs is a challenge to prove his worth.

It arrives in the form of a postcard of Richard III. Is he the villain of Shakespeare’s imaginings or is he the most wronged monarch in history? Grant begins gnawing on the 400-year-old mystery, dragging in acolytes and helpers who indulge him for reasons that are never entirely clear.

In the meantime, the audience of M Kilburg Reedy’s adaptation of Josephine Tey’s classic novel has their own set of challenges.

Firstly, the staging. The bed which contains our hero is right at the back of the stage. Pomfret does some great head-and-neck acting but there are obvious audibility and distance problems. This timorous cowering becomes so pronounced that the actors appear to have a Pavlovian aversion to entering the 12-foot buffer zone at the front where most other productions would do their best work.

Secondly, there’s a lot to remember. Such is the extent of the exposition, characters end up reading from textbooks, dropping in long speeches about Plantagenet politics (where others might discuss the weather or the cricket) and pinning pictures on boards that we, the audience, cannot see.

The programme comes with a family tree which – what? – we’re supposed to learn before the curtain rises? Cue chilling flashbacks to history exams with cold sweat trickling down collective spines and key dates written in biro on shirt cuffs.

Thirdly, all this takes time. So much time that if you were to see all the plots and subplots laid out as a menu – including some Shakespearean romantic fandango – you might dispense with the minor dishes and opt for the classic main course/dessert combo and get the thing done. But writer Reedy will insist on you seeing the product of her thinking as she tussles with evident problems of staging a history lecture.

All this is not to say director Jenny Eastop’s production is not ultimately enjoyable. Time eases the last two of these problems. In the second act the questions become more focussed – did Richard III usurp the throne, and did he kill the princes in the tower? – allowing for some graspable curiosity to arise. And the problem of length, while not entirely dissolved, becomes less obdurate because the actors are earnest in their commitment to the production and reside in settings and costumes (Bob Sterrett) which are sumptuous.

Rob Pomfret as Alan Grant is solid; Rachel Pickup injects glamour into lovelorn actress Marta Hallard, inexplicably besotted with the curmudgeonly Grant; Noah Huntley has fun with closeted stage darling Nigel Templeton; and Harrison Sharpe – the Shaggy of this Scooby Doo gang – is lithe limbed and kooky as amateur investigator Brent Carradine.

Elsewhere the ensemble is curiously well-briefed about English culture and history but disguise their learning with a straight-faced charm.

The whole thing ambles along like a Wolseley 6/90 – reliable, well-upholstered and stately in its way. If time is not an issue, be assured, you will arrive at your destination eventually.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: A HORNY LOVE STORY

Charing Cross Theatre

★★★★

“it’s a joy to watch the exuberant camaraderie spread among the cast”

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST: A HORNY LOVE STORY

Charing Cross Theatre

Reviewed on 4th December 2025

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Steve Gregson

Most recent shows reviewed at this venue:

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

THE DAUGHTER OF TIME

Charing Cross Theatre

★★★

“The whole thing ambles along like a Wolseley 6/90 – reliable, well-upholstered and stately in its way”