Get yer big boots on for some spectacular, energetic, high-end panto sparkle...
You’re smiling and waving at Shane Ritchie as he swoops around a light-bespattered theatre in a flying red Routemaster. You giggle as Shane and a man dressed as a cartoon women make nudge-nudge, wink-wink innuendos in a room full of kids and it’s totally fine. You barrack and boo a veteran actor relentlessly, even when she’s shed the character of a megalomaniacal humanoid rat who glories in her despicable nature to the backing of Billy Eilish.
Are you in a fevered cheese dream? No you’re at panto, of course. Specifically, you’re at this year’s Theatre Royal Panto Dick Whittington, the tale of a plucky ailurophile who comes to London to seek fame, fortune, and streets paved with gold, defeating the dastardly King and Queen Rat and finding love on the way to becoming Lord Mayor.
Best known for his decade-plus stint on Albert Square as cheeky Cockney scamp Alfie Moon, and before that for his 1990s stint as cheeky Cockney door-to-door laundry detergent salesman Shane Ritchie, Shane Ritchie leads the cast in the titular role.
Unlike the Playhouse panto, where the comedy engine house is evergreen Dame John Elkington, Theatre Royal pantos tend to give the bulk of the chuckle-mongering duties to the big name lead. I must admit, just as I didn’t expect to wave at Shane Ritchie as he negotiated an auditorium on a hydraulically-operated bus, I really didn’t expect to find him as amusing as I did.
He surprised me. With a deceptively laid-back, playful air – and like other seasoned former holiday camp entertainers such as Bradley Walsh and Lee Mack – he has a knack for putting audiences at their ease and making everything seem spontaneous, free-wheeling and, well, funnier. I say deceptively because I can appreciate how much work, focus and choreography goes into creating an atmosphere where ‘bloopers’ feel genuinely anarchic and unintended, when in fact they’ve been (avert your credulous eyes, children) meticulously rehearsed for weeks.
Fair play to true pro Mr Ritchie for connecting with the crowd, giving us some wonderfully daft and very funny moments and encouraging us to get our titters out (oh behave).
As with most pantos, the plot is really just a bit of string to hang glitzy song and dance numbers and cheeky comedy skits on. The breathless chaos of the recurring ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’ song is always very welcome. I saw Joe Pasquale do it in Peter Pan at the Theatre Royal a few years back and, whilst it has very similar gags year-on-year, it always gets the audience howling.
Joining Shane this year is actual proper NHS doctor and children’s TV BAFTA winner Dr Ranj who plays the Spirit of The Bells. Looking like a Renaissance nobleman styled by Liberace, Ranj has a natural warmth and ease on the stage and is, I think I can say without fear of reproach, the world’s most charismatic dancing Paediatrician.
Big names or no, you can’t pull off an evening of entertainment as good as this without a stellar ensemble effort from supporting actors, musicians, production staff and writers.
Musical theatre star Anne Smith plays rodent-in-chief, Queen Rat, Emily Beth Harrington is Dick’s love interest Alice Fitzwarren, panto dame stalwart Iain Stuart Robertson is Sarah the Cook, and performer Kenan-Lewis Smith is on top acrobatic form as Dick Whittington’s back-flipping buddy, Kitty Cat.
I always love the pace and polish of the Theatre Royal pantos. We careen from gags, to singing and dancing, to high camp, to audience participation, all at titillating breakneck speed. There are never any doldrums or dull bits, longueurs or lulls, and that’s why it’s always such a hit with all ages.
This City isn’t a one horse town. There’s room enough for Forest and County. We can accommodate Robin Hood and Batman. Where the Playhouse panto can be a little more intimate, local and (dare I say) charming, they really are two quite different horses and this year I greatly enjoyed riding the spectacular, energetic, high-end sparkle horse that is the Theatre Royal panto.
Dick Whittington plays at Nottingham's Theatre Royal until 14 January 2024
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