This year’s pantomime at The Theatre Chipping Norton is that rarity, a
genuine, one hundred percent triumph for everyone involved. Jeff Clarke
has taken another bite at Jack and the Beanstalk, re-writing his
script from some years back, and it has paid off. The strong, intertwined
storylines drive right through the pantomime, leaving no room for
improbability to destroy the fairytale element. He also sidesteps those
disasters, the Big Numbers that bring the action to a crashing stop. His
music suits Peter Pontzen’s style of accompaniment, too, which propels and
underlines the action perfectly.
And what action! The Pippins, fully employed throughout, open with a
dance and song of childhood in rural Olde England. Their mother, an
unstressed single parent of six children (the fairytale element enters
with a bang),is the beautiful Angela Ridgeon playing the Gypsy Woman with
an Irish tinker’s accent. Anyone with half a soul would believe the plot
line if it came from her – that an innocent lad will restore the villagers
of Heyup to neighbourly tranquillity when he liberates a stolen, magical
harp from its hiding place.
In the process of doing that, however, the plot requires Jack to sell
Claribel the cow, which is a crime against bovinity. Claribel, propelled
by Tom and Ian Nolan, has got to be the biggest, most beautiful, most
enchanting cow in the whole of panto-land.
Ms Ridgeon’s playing of the Gypsy Woman is the first indication of what
becomes the hallmark of this marvellous production. She overplays the
character just up to a level that is right for panto of this intimacy and
sensitivity, and never goes over the top. The director, Johnny Worthy, has
done a brilliant job in this way with his entire cast. He might give some
of the credit for this to the script, which creates outlines for
characters rather than simple stereotypes, and he surely must give a huge
amount of credit for this to his actors, who are absolutely right for this
show, without a weak scene amongst them. But his intelligently wielded,
guiding hand is seen and heard throughout.
What is more, Mr Worthy and producer Tamara Malcolm have discovered the
perfect Jack. Steven Butler plays Jack’s goofy innocence winningly,
getting the audience on his side and driving the action with every
entrance. His unsophisticated curiosity, melding into foolish but
well-meant bravery, is perfectly pitched to bring off those scenes of
heroism that defeat most pantos. Jack’s tomboy neighbour Rose Bush is all
gaucherie and teeth in Debbie Manuel’s characterisation, none of this
winsome heroine stuff from her, instead reacting like any teenager against
her Thatcherite mum and dad, who are played with abandon by Julie Hobbs
and Daniel Coll. The sneering villain Sluggit, in a stomping performance
by Alex Maclaren, is long, thin and angular, the ultimate Man from the
Council, a perfect match for his furled umbrella. His great height is
however no match for Maximillian Megafeller the Giant, played by Andrew
Lawden like a Vinnie Jones risen to the status of nightclub bouncer at a
club for the XXL’s. Angela Ridgeon doubles as the Giant’s Wife, an
almost-platinum blonde with sausage curls and a gold gown, going from bed
to worse when her husband blames her for the loss of his magical hen.
And what about the dame, did I hear you say? Stirling Rodger’s Dame
Trot is superb -- big-bosomed but otherwise lean, put-upon but putting it
right back where it came from. Mr Rodger plays it straight, a hard-worked
widow mysteriously fallen from wealth and grandeur, fond of recalling the
good old days in her castle in Barnsley. Dame Trot has trouble with Mr and
Mrs Bush, and with Sluggit, and with Jack. But not with Claribel. It’s two
cows together against a cruel world. Mr Rodger’s quickfire delivery is
crisp, clear and totally understandable, even to this aurally challenged
critic. As a singer, he stops just short of being a belter, with no
pretension to prettiness. In his interpretation, Dame Trot’s cod primping
and simpering, centre stage and direct to the audience, are replaced in a
twinkling of Rodger’s worldly-wise eyes with an implacable honesty equally
delivered straight to his audience, and they lap it up.
The sets are, as always at The Theatre, both lovely and hard-edged.
Colin Winslow’s designs, and Ruth Staines’s by now instinctive feel for
what the Chippy stage wears well, combine to create pictures that defy the
meagre dimensions. The stage is framed by trees, with a distant glimpse
over them, in a trompe l’oeil effect, of an English village. The beanstalk
grows, judged by the hanging flowers, from some prodigious scarlet runner
seed. Jack climbs to the Giant’s castle through a beautiful night sky that
one would like to see again. The interiors of Dame Trot’s cottage and the
contrasting Giant’s sitting room are sparely and wonderfully observed and
painted.
The costumes too are pitched, by Tina Bicât, at a Chippy-sized audience
sitting within sight of every frill and furbelow. Jack’s costume is a
patchwork of every visual cliché that signals ‘poor’, and yet it manages
to be individual and smart. Mrs Bush’s outfits, including changes of
matching handbags and co-ordinating hats, have never been seen in the show
windows of the Westgate Store, being that combination of the prim and the
atrocious that leads one to believe she has found a catalogue outlet that
has given up good taste. Mr Bush sports tweeds that ought to come off a
grouse moor, but wouldn’t be allowed on them for fear of frightening the
birds off. The impeccably tailored Sluggit – well, to do his buttoned-up
three-piece suits justice would be to give away the dénouement.
In an evening of delights, two scenes stand out, both involving Julie
Hobbs as the outrageous Mrs Bush. One is a brilliant crosstalk act, in a
storm, between the Bushes and Sluggit. It is inspired clowning, with Ms
Hobbs providing the most arresting facial expressions since Hyacinth
Bucket spotted her brother-in-law coming to tea. The second is a
confrontation between Mrs Bush and Dame Trot in which the Dame shoots down
her adversary in a duel of hard, fast words delivered like pellets from a
gun without ever losing the comedy of the scene. And the sensational
transformation scene is novel, moral and hilarious, ending in a revival of
the Cha Cha that almost, but not quite, makes the audience want to see
Come Dancing return to our TV.
In a pantomime that eschews the star turns from film and TV, the stars
are never missed. A touch of John Cleese here, some Patsy from AbFab
there, some homage to Melvyn Hayes in Dame Trot’s expressions (with none
of that comic’s camp), some wee Will in Jack’s moments of apprehension.
The world of contemporary showbiz is there as a reference point, but it is
only fleetingly called into play by these excellent actors. They don’t
need secondhand celebrity when their control of their material and their
art is so total.
At the final curtain, when the clapping and cheering had stopped, I
could happily have gone out to spend a penny and buy another bag of
sweets, and then gone straight back in for the next performance. Jack
and the Beanstalk is that terrific a show. The Best Ever of the
29 Chipping Norton pantomimes? You know, I think yes, this is the Number
One. See it.
