Theatre
Theatre review: Dick Whittington
Is it worth trekking to Hammersmith for this pantomime? John Nathan thinks not
November 29, 2018 17:15
Is it worth trekking to Hammersmith for this pantomime? John Nathan thinks not
November 29, 2018 17:15From Brexit to knife-crime, Londoners have little to feel good about their home town these days.
But for a moment or two this panto releases a sense of pride for a city which, despite everything, can still claim to be the greatest in the world.
But in this 10th anniversary year of Lyric pantos, that flush of pride only keeps this production buoyant for so long.
Granted, Luke Latchman’s Welsh Dick is good, goofy company, and Margaret Cabourn-Smith as a pigeon mayor and sea captain has a kind of comedy charisma that upstages without hogging the limelight. Also enjoyable is Carl Mullaney’s Dame who has that essential quality of kindness beneath the ruthless badinage.
Yet, although writer comedian Cariad Lloyd sprinkles serviceable gags throughout, the slapstick is slapdash and the fun dips when the action sinks to the sea-bed, which Sarah-Louise Young’s Queen Rat attempts to colonise with her brood of rodents.
You need a strong sense of the surreal to make that work and better reason than the Baby Shark song to go there.
This show is fine if you’re local but, unlike Dick, I wouldn’t make the trek to get there.