EDITH Evans, that grand theatrical dame who took over-acting to a fine art, once became so exasperated with a ‘method’ actor, who in rehearsal was moving and doing things continually during a scene, that she exploded – and, fixing the young man with a beady eye, announced in stertorous tones to one and all: “Young man, don’t do something, just stand there.”
Kathryn Rooney’s production of writers Harry Michaels and Brian Conley’s interpretation of the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears would, I suspect, incur the same ire from Dame Edith if she was still around to see the production. With Andrew Exeter’s lighting design continually producing dazzling changes of flashing lights, spectacular hologram images (including an elephant that fills most of the vast Hippodrome stage), Gregory Clarke’s full-volume sound design and a great deal of vocal backing track, the production mounts an attack on your visual and hearing senses, with very little respite throughout.
It’s all designed to sweep the entertainment along at a tremendous pace, which it does – but did we need all that visual and sound presentation with so many top-class players on hand?
The vastly experienced Brian Conley showed all the experience acquired in many years at the top on stage and TV as he worked the audience and interviewed four youngsters on stage. Phil Corbitt’s Baron von Blackheart provides an ideal target for the enthusiastic audience to hiss and boo. Phil Hitchcock’s Magical Mysterioso’s bag of magic tricks, including the appearance of wing-flapping doves, acrobatic tumbling from the Timbuktu Tumblers, Brenda Edwards as feisty good fairy Candy Floss, the charming Lucy Conley in the title role of Goldilocks and David Robbins’ underused Dame Betty Barnham all added to the fun,
The fact that the dame was underused was a pity, not just for David Robbins, but for the audience, which, from the ready way they responded to every opportunity to join in the fun, would gladly have swapped some of the spectacle for a few more traditional panto routines … and, dare we say it in an era when health and safety are so important, more wet messy slapstick.
Perhaps we are being too greedy in asking for more visual comedy, because there is already a great deal to enjoy in this show which sets out to fulfil the claim of the great showman Phineas T Barnum that he presented The Greatest Show on Earth … in this case The Greatest Panto on Earth. You can judge the truth of that claim by going to Bristol Hippodrome, where there are matinees and evening performances almost every day between now and Sunday 5th January 2025.
GRP
Photograph Mark Dawson Photography