★★★★★

“This is the only panto you’ll ever need. It’s the festive season in a nutshell.”

If you are a pantomime completist, you can easily knock off a handy six – or is it seven? – in one night at Wilton’s Music Hall and have a fabulous time doing so.

The comic duo of Dan and Jeff bring their quick-fire Potted Panto back to the gorgeously distressed venue cramming in the festive cheer with the pluck and ingenuity of a turkey stuffer faced with a big bag of giblets.

In goes Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella. Here comes a whistlestop Jack and the Beanstalk and an abbreviated Snow White. The pair – aided and abetted by costume changes, cut corners, puppets and belly laughs – rattle through the traditional canon in a slick and practised 80 minutes, and that includes fast and furious recaps.

Daniel Clarkson and Jeff Turner are good at this. Really good. They’ve been “potting” works since 2005 beginning with Harry Potter (Potted Potter, geddit?) and moving on to pirates and Sherlock Holmes. Potted Panto was first shown at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2010 and transferred to the West End where it was Olivier nominated. The show arrived at Wilton’s last year and looks like becoming a regular fixture – with tickets selling fast. This is nothing but good news. It deserves to become an East End tradition.

At times the cheerful conspiratorial exuberance tips over from stage show to party time, with the fourth wall not just broken but blown up. That accounts for the enthusiastic embrace for the “3D” section where everyone joins in a rambunctious carriage chase through a haunted forest.

There’s topical stuff for the adults – Donald Trump, Gregg Wallace – and enough wee-wee and poo gags to have the kids slamming their hands to their mouths in naughty giggles.

Dan Clarkson, the tall one, plays the part of the cheeky troublemaker with puckish glee, while harassed Jeff, the short one, tries to keep the whole show on the road. Co-writer Richard Hurst also directs and manages to co-ordinate chaos to such an effective degree he should run for government.

All this is helped immeasurably by the special magic of Wilton’s. With its echoes of Dickensian Christmases Past, especially with Tiny Tim limping across the stage, the whole place has the cosiness and irrepressible delight of those childhood December nights that were almost too exciting to bear.

Remember, if any other Christmas show offers you just the one storyline, you’ve been short-changed. This is the only panto you’ll ever need.

It’s the festive season in a nutshell.

PINOCCHIO at the Theatre Royal Stratford East

★★★★

“an eye-popping, feel-good extravaganza”

Theatre Royal Stratford East leads its audience on a magical mystery tour with its vibrant retelling of the Pinocchio story, blessed with neon colours, funky beats – and a fairy to die for.

Sizzling with energy and dressed like an atompunk seaside arcade, this classic tale of the wooden puppet who wants to be a real boy has zip and a dazzling bubblegum aesthetic thanks to set and costume designer Stewart J Charlesworth, who deserves to take the applause alongside the admirable cast.

The story, under the direction of Omar F Okai, draws directly from Italian writer Carlo Collodi’s 1883 classic.

Pinocchio, a mischievous wooden puppet carved by the kind-hearted Geppetto, comes to life. He is impulsive and rebellious, leading him into a series of misadventures. He runs away, skipping school to attend a puppet show. He is soon swindled by the deceitful Sly Fox and Miss Cat, who convince him to gamble away his money.

He joins a group of troublemakers who take him to Playland where he is transformed into a donkey and sold to a circus. After a series of humiliations, Pinocchio is thrown into the sea and swallowed by a shark. Who Pinocchio meets inside the shark finally persuades the puppet to change his ways.

Playland, a chicken farm, a shark’s belly, a workshop, a dark circus – what a confection of opportunities for set design, lighting, choreography and fun.

Everything relies on the winning power and prowess of Pinocchio and Dylan Collymore delivers, with disco moves, soulful tones and a cheeky presence. The music, courtesy of Trish Cooke and Robert Hyman, calls on an eclectic range of global styles and puts everyone through their paces.

The cast is gleeful and charming. Special mention to crowd pleasers Nicole Louise Lewis as Krik Krak (“I say Krik, you say Krak”) and jolly jack of all trades Tok Morakinyo who turns up all over the place in different guises.

Saving the best till last though, cutting through the sugar-rush flim-flam is veteran Michael Bertenshaw as the Blue Rinse Fairy who has sharpened his vaudeville stylings and dry badinage into a formidable comic weapon. With his sardonic eye rolls and wry world weariness, his exasperation might go over the heads of the little ones, but he speaks directly to the grown-ups.

While the exuberant cast sweat buckets in elaborate street-smart dance routines, laconic Bertenshaw merely needs to deadpan to the stalls to have us all in hysterics.

Minor quibbles: the story is picaresque and episodic so it’s easy to lose track of progress; and the evil pair of Fox and Cat could indulge in more obvious crowd-riling villainy – giving everyone more opportunities to boo. Still, the dance numbers landed, the storytelling was upbeat, and everyone left the theatre cheerfully singing a refrain about believing in themselves. Job done.

Tag Archives: Giles Broadbent

🎭 TOP CHRISTMAS SHOW 2024 🎭

POTTED PANTO

★★★★★

Wilton’s Music Hall

POTTED PANTO

Wilton’s Music Hall

★★★★★

“This is the only panto you’ll ever need. It’s the festive season in a nutshell.”

POTTED PANTO at Wilton’s Music Hall

Reviewed on 6th December 2024

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Geraint Lewis

Previous Potted Panto reviews:

POTTED PANTO | ★★★★★ | WILTON’S MUSIC HALL | December 2023

POTTED PANTO | ★★★★★ | APOLLO THEATRE | December 2022

POTTED PANTO

POTTED PANTO

Click here to see our Recommended Shows page

PINOCCHIO

★★★★

Theatre Royal Stratford East

PINOCCHIO at the Theatre Royal Stratford East

★★★★

“an eye-popping, feel-good extravaganza”