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Iain Lauchlan as Dame Sarah the Cook and Craig Hollingsworth as Idle Jack. Picture: Robert Day Dick Whittington
Belgrade Theatre
***** IAIN Lauchlan is certainly a hard worker
– as well as being the impressive writer and director he is also Dame
Sarah the Cook in this year’s Pantomime at the Belgrade Theatre,
Coventry. There are the usual components with enough twists
of originality to keep it fresh. I always love the bit where the
children go on stage at the end. Dick Whittington is a real treat, signalling for
me the start of the Christmas period beautifully. The theatre was packed
and the sense of excitement as the music started quite palpable. Fairy
Bow Bells (Anna Mitcham), with a good line in Cockney rhyming slang,
starts the fun sparring with her nemesis Queen Rat (Melone M’Kenzy), who
‘can’t half sing’! The story is given a fresh twist too. Dick
(Tricia Adele-Turner) and Tommy the cat (wonderful – Becky Stone) arrive
in the capital where the streets are ‘paved with gold’ to find the place
overrun with huge rats. Tommy cleans up and wins Dick a place on the
Saucy Sal sailing to Morocco with Dame Sarah and stalwart sidekick Idle
Jack (Craig Hollingsworth), and a couple of ratty companions Scratch and
Sniff (Matthew Brock and Eden Dominique), Queen Rat’s silly emissaries. Dame Sarah has her eyes firmly fixed on the
Sultan of Morocco (Declan Wilson) as her fifth husband and icing the
cake is the wonderful sloppy scene – with our pre-selected stooge – poor
chap - Kieran covered in foam… I particularly enjoyed the scene with the
projected bells telling Dick in a dream to return to London after he has
been banished after a ratty framing for a robbery, leaving behind his
new love Alice (Kelly Agredo) and her father Alderman Fitzwarren (Declan
Wilson). I also enjoyed the luminous underwater scene with the giant
octopus and children’s ensemble – lovely. The Dame’s costumes are outrageous and gorgeous,
particularly the boat one – and plenty of audience participation,
throwing foam balls at rats, the Haka from Dame Sarah’s rugby club (the
Bees) and the sweet song at the end. All good family fun, where the
actor’s improv skills shine through when things go awry, as they
inevitably do, Idle Jack called Dick ‘she’ which he covered beautifully
by saying ‘he’s wearing fish net tights!’ Gorgeous; go see. To 07-01-17 Jane Howard 25-11-16
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