Lyric's Jack and the Beanstalk is a Rock 'n' Roll Panto for All Ages
This is a great big rock 'n' roll panto for kids of all ages. It’s wickedly funny, colourful, bursting with energy, utterly bonkers and great fun. The costumes are gorgeous and there's live music with lots of songs, some of which the audience are expected to join in with.
It’s also manipulative, I was completely swept along by the whole thing: ah-ing, booing and hissing on command, so was my Plus One and, as far as I could see, so were the other big kids. We sang when told to, got up and danced to order and laughed lots.
The characters are Daisy the cuddly cow (Kayla Meikle), who can only talk to the audience and Fairy Cucumber, she has to communicate in a series of moos with everyone else. Fairy Cucumber(Cherrelle Skeete) is the one who supplies the magic, she's an angst ridden green sprite who scatters stardust whenever she leaps on stage.
The starry- eyed, gullible Jack (Faith Omole), who swaps Daisy for a few beans, is actually a girl. She and her mother, Dame Widow Trottalot (Kraig Thornber) are going to be homeless if they can't pay the rent on their farm. Dame Trottalot is a smashing dame kitted out in outrageous wigs and costumes , she's looking for a man so if you don't want to risk being her love interest don't sit too close to the front.
And of course there's a proper villain - Baron Fleshcreep, (Vikki Stone), is the greedy landlord who increased the rent, relishing the boos and hisses whenever he appears accompanied by thunder and lightning. There are a few nods to Brexit as Jack goes in search of millions of Euros to save the farm.
And finally there's Jack's love interest, a boy called Jill, the son of Baron Fleshcreep, played by Daniel Fraser. Jill wants to be an actor. Which is the cue for a few industry in-jokes. He's been locked up all his life and now he's been freed the world is a bit of a mystery to him, especially as he's fallen in love. At one point his wig fell off, it wasn't meant to, but it added to the fun.
An ensemble of six brilliant young dancers leap and twirl their way through it all, doing the splendid choreography proud. They turn up as vegetables, flowerpots, miscellaneous elves and the giant's servants. All together the whole thing cracks along in a noisy, jolly, proper panto mix. And then right at the end, while the audience is still on their feet after a bit of a bop, Fairy Cucumber actually flies right over the stage sprinkling more stardust and it snows all over the audience.
Lovely.
Jack and the Beanstalk, suitable for children aged six and up, continues until January 6, with matinees and evening performances on most days. Accessible perfomances are relaxed, at 1.30pm on 6 December, open captioned on 15 December at 7pm, BSL on 16 December at 2pm and audio described on 17 December at 5.30pm.
Find out more and book tickets online or call the box office on 020 8741 6850.
November 29, 2017.
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