(seen at the afternoon performance on 6th January 2024)
Harrogate Production & Set Services come up with a cracking pirate ship and crocodile, which dominate the large Apollo Hammersmith stage. The over-sized scenery betrays the arena settings this show usually plays.
It explains the rather bare stage when the 'big truck' pieces are absent, and also perhaps the lack of intimacy the entire performance suffers. Clearly designed entirely in yard brush strokes to reach many thousands seated hundreds of feet from the stage, there is not always enough to satisfy a conventional theatre audience seated just two metres away.
Director Jon Conway does his best with the limitations of scaling the show down to indoor theatre level. If we are closer to the performers, we need to feel we know more about them as we can see their expressions. They are physically close, so we need to be emotionally close too; their personalities explained in far more detail than this production can allow.
The pre-show prowling of the auditorium by Karl Magee as Pirate Starkey You and Sam Fogell as Smee are under-written and badly under-amplified. If you are going to wander to try and build atmosphere, have quips ready and a means of the arriving audience sharing them.
Introducing Ben Ofoedu (Pirate Ben Hoo) of “Phats & Small” to perform “Feel Good” as a bridge into the main action is the second hint that things may not go well. Sure, it stirs the audience a little, but leaves Dorit Kemsley as Mrs Darling to open the show proper as if she has wandered onto the wrong stage.
Clearly baffled by her role anyway, Kemsley is wisely given little to do as Mrs Darling and even less as the Magical Mermaid. She makes every effort and is likeable in both roles, but perhaps a crash-course in panto before her four London performances might have helped her feel more comfortable.
Luckily, Jordan Conway as Peter Pan has enough energy and quick wit for them both. If “Behind You” defeats Kemsley, Conway covers with a string of gags, asides and audience games to make up for it.
He spills it over the other cast members, Kelly Banlaki as Wendy Darling giggling delightedly at his humour, though a confused “what?!” to his assertion about being the only person allowed to tie her up was well deserved.
Banlaki’s big solo moment, in a rarely seen “distract the singer” set-piece goes down well and she clearly enjoyed the work. Her constant sparring with Ebony Feare’s incongruously “street” roller-skating Tinkerbelle also brings out the best in both actors, filling in characterisation missing from Jon and Jordan Conway’s necessarily superficial script – which incidentally contains some sweet if not memorable original songs.
As Captain Hook, Boy George sings his three biggest hits - pleasing the entire audience and his fellow cast members alike. His mortification at accidentally hitting a three-year-old fan with a cannon ball was very real too, eliciting sympathy and respect from all as he dealt charmingly with the situation.
In smaller roles, sharing (almost) a hair-style, Penni Tovey as Tiger Lily handles her clumsy dialogue well, while in background work Eszter and Vivien Skyduo deserve a small note for their airborne ribbon dance work.
Respectful of panto tradition, the production is performed to a high standard - the gentlemen do particularly nicely in an "Abbott and Costello" style spoofing of pronoun obsession.
The glaring error of explaining “John is away at boarding school – Boy George is expensive” can be overlooked in context, though it is not a well-considered line. So too the lack of visual appeal outside the few ‘set pieces’ for reasons already explained.
Perhaps not an experiment to be repeated in London until the more suitable Wembley Arena is available, and certainly not even close to the overall quality of the London Palladium show running simultaneously. Still, it entertained many and was a chance to hear the old songs and share a few of the old routines and jokes again. Done with enthusiasm, the monkey can only award it a tick...
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3 stars