Other than Caryl Churchill’s Seven Jewish Children, the most controversial play this year was Richard Bean’s England People Very Nice. With its stereotypes of militant Muslims, agricultural Irish and hora-dancing Chasids it greatly offended those with a sense-of-humour bypass.
Now Bean has co-written his first pantomime — with Che Walker, Joel Horwood and Morgan Lloyd Malcolm — and it too has a distinct un-PC strain.
Aside from the puppet hunchback giant (voice courtesy of Patrick Stewart), Steve Marmion’s production is low on budget though big on fun. If the sets are wobbly, the humour is robust. Martyn Ellis’s smutty-in-good-way, fat and ugly dame (aka Jack’s mum) gets most of the laughs. Ellis has an old-school working men’s club delivery — only it is delivered by a bloke in a dress, of course.
Almost as funny is Sean Kearn’s all-dancing Irish sidekick (to the evil Evelyn Greedly, played by Angela Wynter), who cannot help but launch into song every time he hears a familiar lyric. I know people like that.
This show never reaches the imaginative heights of last year’s gothic Cinderella, but there is a pleasing rough-and-ready feel to the evening that does the panto tradition proud without resorting to G-list celebrities.
Best of all is Javier Marzan’s Spanish bull who dons udders to play the cow that Jack sells. Udderly ridiculous.
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