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9 hours ago
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Elon Musk as a pantomime villain? That’s a sight with which we’re all familiar. But panto villain as Elon Musk? Maybe that’s a first for Vikki Stone and Tonderai Munyevu’s Christmas show, which doesn’t stint on satirical sideswipes – nor, I am happy to report, on boisterous festive fun. Musk makes his appearance spooking our three heroes when they hijack a rocket at SpaceX to rescue Gary the Goose from interstellar (for some reason) captivity. Formerly owned by the good fairy WTF, he has been birdnapped by her frenemy BFF – and if those two are giving strong Glinda and Elphaba vibes, well, I don’t think it’s a coincidence.
There’s something to savour everywhere you look, starting with Duane Gooden’s haughty West African dame, who “puts the tit in titular”. She is queen of all she surveys here, as both the protagonist whose journey to the dark side of consumerist self-absorption and back forms the spine of the story, and the ad-libber whose backchat with the crowd supplies many of its liveliest moments. We also get Ché Walker flapping around as the golden egg-laying goose, like some ghost of Cockney Christmases past. And a pair of young sweethearts, principal boy Jack and his cyber inamorata, whose mutual attraction is gleefully sent up (“I know you’re a bot / But I like you a lot”) and thoroughly loveable at the same time.
Stewart Charlesworth’s design turns the whole thing into a great big carnival of colour and style, and there is lots to enjoy about Robert Hyman’s Afrobeat-tinged score, too. There’s no point pretending the narrative is wholly coherent – it’s a panto, after all – but I admired Stone and Munyevu’s effort to corral this golden-egg fairytale into an all-that-glitters parable for our flashy, trashy times. Sarcastic songs about how much we should all love billionaires? Dialogue dishing dirt on the urban corporate hellscape on this theatre’s doorstep? I’m here for it. Add stellar performances (Mya Fox-Scott’s baddie notable among them) by an eight-strong cast working hard for each other and clearly having a ball, and you’ve got a panto to cherish.
