Review – Goldilocks and the Three Bears, London Palladium

Peter Pan and Snow White are not proper pantomimes according to that doyenne of panto dames Clive Rowe in Time Out. Couldn’t agree more.

The latter was last year’s Palladium pantomime. Goodness knows what Mr Rowe will make of this year’s offering, Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Yet to Phil, this rarely performed story will always be a pantomime. It was the second one he ever saw, his first was, ahem, Little Miss Muffet. This was, naturally, a few years ago and at the Theatre Royal Bath with Sandy (Can you hear me, mother?) Powell as the dame. How he gasped as the bears’ woodland cottage unfolded to reveal the interior of a two-storey house before his very eyes and how the incredible blue of the linings of the chorus’ costumes forever seared his retinas as the story took a diversion onto a Mississippi paddle steamer. Don’t ask.

Review – Snow White, The London Palladium

Snow White? Not a proper panto is it really? Well not in our dusty old panto inventory.

But then this is the Palladium panto, now in its third year since being reinvented for this venue, and it is (of course) bigger than ever, and has expanded its repertory company of Julian Clary, Gary Wilmot, Nigel Havers, Paul Zerdin, Charlie Stemp with the USP of Dawn French in her first ever panto and for those interested in such things dance duo Vincent & Flavia. Plus – quite rightly – seven people of restricted euphemism.

Review – The King and I, London Palladium

In a relatively theatre-free summer Phil’s last two and a half theatre outings have been to revivals of popular musicals which were turned into successful films starring the original stage star. Rather scarily Phil saw both these stage productions with the aforementioned stars.

Review – Dick Whittington, London Palladium

If we say Andrew can’t get enough Dick (he’s off for more Dick with The Krankies in Manchester this weekend) you get a measure of the entendre to expect in this year’s Palladium panto.

You’d expect Dick Whittington starring Julian Clary as The Spirit of the Bells to have more dick gags than you can shake an, obviously very large, stick at. What we didn’t expect were so many references to musical theatre; Follies, Elaine Paige‘s radio show and her back catalogue of most famous show tunes, Half A Sixpence (Charlie Stemp and Emma Williams from that show play Dick and Alice Fitzwarren respectively), Hello Dolly! (Stemp is heading to Broadway shortly to appear in it) and even the mega-hyped Hamilton are all referenced. You may wonder exactly who the show is aimed at. Not kiddies at all, but musical people of a certain age. Not that we complain.

Review – Cinderella, London Palladium

Phil saw his first Palladium pantomime 31 years ago, which also turned out to be the venue’s last Cinderella and its penultimate pantomime for decades. Babes in the Wood was its last for almost 30 years – what ever happened to that title? Or Puss in Boots? Or Humpty Dumpty? Or Goldilocks and the Three Bears come to that?

That 1985 Cinderella included Hope & Keen, John Junkin, Paul Nicholas and Des O’ Connor who was rather brilliant at managing to keep the thing afloat. Just. There were real ponies, Step Sisters (they eschewed calling them the Ugly Sisters even then) called Cagney and Lacey and Dame Anna Neagle who died a few months after struggling on as the Fairy Godmother.

It was a pretty lacklustre affair, never reaching the dizzying heights of spectacle Phil expected of Palladium panto legend.

Review – I Can’t Sing! The X Factor Musical in 3 Acts, London Palladium

Preamble

Something of surprise that the well-received The Full Monty (you know the one; men lose their jobs and take their clothes off as a result. Critic Mark Shenton’s life back to front if you think about it) has posted closing notices so soon. We may not have been especially impressed with Monty yet it still looked like a sure-fire hen party hit to us. Clothes were shed but more than than shirts have been lost.

So, even if it does match Hello, Dolly! for the amount of punctuation employed in a musical’s title, what hope then for the Harry Hill/Steve Brown show I Can’t Sing! The X Factor Musical ?

Review – Barry Humphries’ Farewell Tour : Eat Pray Laugh!, London Palladium

Fart gags, politically incorrect jokes, on-stage cookery, audience participation a dame and a proscenium arch to boot. How wonderfully Whingerish. What’s not to like?

Well, the production values for starters. It’s possibly deliberate, but at these prices, and at the Palladium, one doesn’t really expect end-of-the-pier dancing and decidedly cheap-looking sets which have the whiff of ‘tour’ about them, but since it is Barry Humphries’ Farewell Tour : Eat, Pray Laugh! maybe the clue was in the title. Then there’s Edna’s frock which close up looks as if it’s nearing the end of the run rather than just beginning it.

Review – A Chorus Line, London Palladium

“Is there anyone in it?” queried Andrew on the marathon trek from Palladium street entrance to stalls seat.

“Someone from Eastenders you won’t have heard of and a Strallen” replied Phil. “The one that was in Singin’ in the Rain“.

As long as there are tights to be worn, taps to be tapped and hooves to be hoofed there will be Strallens. Strallens are born to dance. No doubt they enter this world high-kicking in the default position of one leg at 85 degrees with a shapely calf pressed to the face.

The Whingers were, rather unusually, both quite looking forward to A Chorus Line (book James Kirkwood, Jr. and Nicholas Dante, lyrics Edward Kleban, music Marvin Hamlisch) although were a tad concerned that the show, so innovative in its day (not so far off 40 years ago) and receiving its first West End revival, might not have aged well, especially with its showbizzy American navel-gazing.

Review – The Wizard of Oz, London Palladium

Featuring TV’s Danielle Hope as Dorothy and Bill Kenwright as the Harbinger of Doom.

We were astonished to read that co-producer Mister Bill Kenwright had been treading the Palladium boards as warm-up man for Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s new production of The Wizard of Oz. Frankly, it seemed unlikely.

But it is true.

It was true on Tuesday evening, anyway. There he was, reminiscing about Sunday Night at the London Palladium, talking up the quality of the orchestra, the beauty of the sets and the “zillions” (which must mean TWOO has now outstripped Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark as the most expensive musical of all time) spent on the double stage revolve.

Stopping just short of slapping a thigh he encouraged the crowd to sing along, clap, cheer, scream and boo the wicked witch before casually dropping in the fact that Michael Crawford wouldn’t actually be giving his wonderful Wizard or his Professor Marvel. Or his Emerald City doorman, come to that. It’s times like this make you wish for the simple white slip poking out of your programme.

The cause? Not mere laryngitis but “blood on his nodules”, apparently – a medical detail that perhaps unsurprisingly failed to whip the crowd much further into the desired state of frenzy but which did cause the Whingers to kick themselves for not packing the WEW Patent Rectal Thermometer.

An economically monickered understudy called “Zeph” (usually “Munchkin Mayor/Ensemble”) would be stepping into Mister Crawford’s beret.

Review – Sister Act with Whoopi Goldberg, London Palladium

We were less than whelmed the first time we saw Sister Act and an uncharacteristically charitable return visit to check whether we might not have been too hasty in casting the first stones proved equally unrewarding. You might think that that should be an end to it. And so did we. But there’s no prizes for guessing what dragged the Whingers back to the London Palladium.

Re-review: Sister Act with Patina Miller, London Palladium

Presumably due to some administrative error the Whingers ended up with free tickets to see Sister Act again at the London Palladium which they took up in order to see if seeing the star Patina Miller would make a difference to their somewhat muted reception.

Review – Sister Act The Musical, London Palladium

How the Whingers long for Ethel Merman.

They long for her perpetually but on Monday they were specifically longing for her “the show must go on” spirit: La Merman apparently never missed performances and was famously understudied by Elaine Stritch even though she was already appearing in another show, so confident were they that Merman would never be “off”

Now anyone can get an ailment. And even the Whingers have succumbed to the occasional sniffle (usually when watching Imitation of Life). And Andrew is, of course, a slave to his feet.