POTTED PANTO at Wilton’s Music Hall

★★★★★

“Basically, you’ve just got to see it to believe it.”

Daniel Clarkson and Jefferson Turner (thereinafter referred to as Dan and Jeff) take on the task of presenting six-and-a-half popular pantomimes in the space of eighty minutes. They’ve been doing it for some years now, so are probably getting quite adept. Just to show off, immediately after the interval they summarise the first act (a mere four pantomimes) in three minutes. ‘Potted Potted Panto’ they call it. They don’t stop there – they then recap (donning their ‘recap caps’) in one minute. Yes, you guessed: ‘Potted Potted Potted Panto’. It goes on. Until breathlessly they somehow revert to the task in hand. This is their modus operandi. They are constantly having to rein each other in, pulling themselves away from the many digressions and bizarre, surreal, outlandish embellishments they have piled thick and fast onto the traditional stories. It is a miracle that they are condensed at all, what with the sheer number of laugh-out-loud moments packed in.

Dan and Jeff are a slick duo. Vaudevillian, but a touch more risqué. Morecambe and Wise but with the more modern, anarchic chaos of Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson. Deep down we know that this show has been rehearsed to a tee, but it feels like a rampage. One that is forever teetering on the verge of collapse. The popular titles they have chosen are ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’, ‘Dick Whittington’, ‘Snow White’, ‘Sleeping Beauty’, ‘Cinderella’ and ‘Aladdin’. Ah, yes, the ones we know and love. Except that after witnessing Dan and Jeff’s interpretation we cease to know them – but love them even more. At Dan’s insistence, ‘A Christmas Carol’ is shoehorned in (hilariously mashed up with ‘Aladdin’ – I shall say nothing!). Strictly speaking, Dickens’ Victorian classic is not a pantomime. Jeff feels the need to point this out. Neither is the Nativity. Nor the John Lewis Christmas advert, nor the Doctor Who Christmas Special.

Dan concedes. And so, the roller coaster ride begins. Caught in the cyclone of activity are dozens of costume changes that more or less keep up with the plot twists. Our perceptions of the fairy tales we grew up with are not just stretched but snapped clean in two. We are in a world where giant moose lay golden eggs and Dick Whittington conquers London in his shiny green hotpants and thigh high boots. Where fairy God-chickens wave their magic baguettes and dinosaurs wander into Sleeping Beauty’s bramble-thick garden. Where the ghost of Christmas Present is summoned from a genie’s lamp… I could go on and list every bizarre twist, joke, reference, visual pun, innuendo, satirical zeitgeist. But it would take all day. And you wouldn’t believe it anyway so there’s no such thing as a spoiler for this show. I could hand you the script word for word and you’d be none the wiser. Basically, you’ve just got to see it to believe it.

Written by the pair (along with Richard Hurst) it is, despite all evidence to the contrary, an exceedingly witty and intelligent creation. The intricate balancing act of the language and the humour aims straight for the ‘grown ups’ and the ‘little ones’ simultaneously without any confusion being whipped up in the crossfire. It is difficult to decipher who is enjoying it the most as the laughter from each generation vies for supremacy in the auditorium. Similarly, it is a joy to witness the performers having just as much of a ball as the audience. Even when they are corpsing they are in command. They don’t really need it, but aid comes intermittently in the shape of stage manager, Sammy Johnson, who adopts a couple of idiosyncratic characters of his own. And Marie-Claire Wood matches their comic flair wordlessly, before stunning us with her beautiful singing voice.

If I were to put down on paper what this show is about (oh, hang on – that’s exactly what I’m doing) I’d be wary about letting anybody read it. I don’t think it would make much sense. What would make less sense, though, would be to miss this sensational, seasonal show. Even if the show itself makes no sense. But that’s the beauty of it. ‘Tis the season to be silly. Or is it jolly? Anyway, “Potted Panto” is jolly silly. ‘Potted’ – according to the dictionary – has more than one meaning: 1. Shortened. 2. Intoxicated. Well – that says it all.

POTTED PANTO at Wilton’s Music Hall

Reviewed on 1st December 2023

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Geraint Lewis

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Feast | ★★★½ | September 2023

I Wish My Life Were Like A Musical | ★★★★★ | August 2023

Express G&S | ★★★★ | August 2023

The Mikado | ★★★★ | June 2023

Ruddigore | ★★★ | March 2023

Charlie and Stan | ★★★★★ | January 2023

A Dead Body In Taos | ★★★ | October 2022

Patience | ★★★★ | August 2022

Starcrossed | ★★★★ | June 2022

The Ballad of Maria Marten | ★★★½ | February 2022

The Child in the Snow | ★★★ | December 2021

Roots | ★★★★★ | October 2021

Potted Panto

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★★★★

“it is the storming performance of Cameron Robertson’s Creature that will live in the memory”

Tilted Wig presents a telling of Mary Shelley’s classic Victorian novel adapted and directed by Séan Aydon. The story begins in a lonely wooden hut somewhere in the cold frozen wilds. A starving traveller bangs on the door and is admitted by the scared and suspicious person living within. There is palpable tension in a scene almost devoid of dialogue. Both strangers have a story to tell but it is that of Doctor Victoria Frankenstein that we will see acted out before us.

The cabin moves away to reveal the Doctor’s laboratory. The set (designer Nicky Bunch) is a minimalist masterpiece. Shelves with a myriad of illuminated jars containing who knows what, skulls in cabinets. A half-tiled wall resembles that of the morgue or the asylum. Dominating the rear of the stage is a huge window like that of a church or cathedral. Doctor Frankenstein (Eleanor McLoughlin) and her assistant Francine (Annette Hannah) are about to complete an audacious experiment – the creation of life – by conducting an impending lightning strike into a mismatch of body parts and organs.

We are introduced to Henry (Dale Mathurin), a physicist sickened by the gooiness of biology, and Victoria’s love interest. But there is little spark between the two characters and it is hard to believe in their romance. The dialogue is stilted and some attempts at humour don’t land. Victoria’s sister Elizabeth (Lula Marsh) – feminine, colourful and vivacious against Victoria’s androgenous, drab, and dowdy – arrives unannounced and then as quickly departs.

The audience awaits the introduction of the Creature to lift the production above the pedestrian. Cameron Robertson is outstanding, bringing the Creature to life with a great deal of twitching, moaning and gurning. We feel his pain. With the help of excellent make-up and prosthetics (Missy Brazier), he is repulsive to look at and Robertson commands the stage, his movements deliberately awkward and clumsy with a drop of the shoulder and a twisted gait. A number of jump-scares add to the power of the storytelling.

Elements of the Gothic are seen in the extended flashes of lightning through the large window (lighting Matt Haskins), but this production skilfully avoids any slide into cliché or shtick. An eerie soundtrack of music and electronics (composer Eamonn O’Dwyer), reminiscent of a film soundtrack, heightens the tension at key moments.

This adaptation is set in pre-war Germany and there are sufficient mentions of master race ambitions for us to understand the writer’s suggestions. There are sinister undertones in the speech of Dr Richter (Basienka Blake) which are shown in her open disgust of Francine and Henry. The actor shows off her vocal versatility too with a role and accent so different to that of her earlier appearance in the wooden hut. A powerful scene between the Doctor and Francine raises the question of responsibilities with McLaughlin and Hannah’s performances reaching a new level of passion and earnestness.

Mary Shelley’s story is passably narrated in this two-hour adaptation. Much of the work falls on the competent but overly fastidious Eleanor McLaughlin as the Doctor but it is the storming performance of Cameron Robertson’s Creature that will live in the memory.

POTTED PANTO at Wilton’s Music Hall

★★★★★

“Basically, you’ve just got to see it to believe it.”

POTTED PANTO at Wilton’s Music Hall

Reviewed on 1st December 2023

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Geraint Lewis

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Potted Panto

Potted Panto

FRANKENSTEIN at the Cambridge Arts Theatre

★★★★

“it is the storming performance of Cameron Robertson’s Creature that will live in the memory”

FRANKENSTEIN at the Cambridge Arts Theatre

Reviewed on 3rd October 2023

by Phillip Money

Photography by Robling Photography

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Frankenstein

Frankenstein