Julian Clary steals the show in a gloriously OTT Peter Pan
The Palladium’s annual pantomime, a tradition re-established in 2016, really is in a league of its own. Nothing else comes close to this mega-blockbuster, splash-the-cash spectacle: Ziegfeld Follies meets the Royal Variety Performance. In this year’s Peter Pan, the hot pants budget alone could probably bankroll a small country.
It also gets top marks for narrative efficiency. You can’t move for Pans this Christmas, so if you want a show that diligently checks off every plot point, there are plenty of options. Michael Harrison’s version sidelines the story (let’s face it: the Darling kiddies are a bit of a bore), and before you can say “Second star to the right and straight on ’til morning”, the family is whisked off to Neverland and largely forgotten.
Inspired by her former comedy partner Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders makes a respectable panto debut as Captain Hook, although she’s more crotchety than fearsome. She protests that she won’t be “rehashing an old 90s sitcom”, but of course she does just that when Hook disguises herself as Eddie from Ab Fab.
But this panto’s major draw remains its magnificent regulars: Nigel Havers, Gary Wilmot, Paul Verdin and Julian Clary as, yes, seaman Smee. Clary really is a marvel, whether dispensing filthy innuendo (“Have you ever been press-ganged on the poop deck?”), or mercilessly skewering his castmates. Louis Gaunt’s expositional duties as Pan are mocked (“It’s plot, plot, plot with him”), as is Wendy actress Frances Mayli McCann’s “mysterious” Scottish accent, and Havers’s recent UK tour of Private Lives in “draughty provincial theatres”.
There’s a genuine sense of danger to some of Clary’s ad libs, rare in an increasingly careful theatre culture, and we get jeopardy of another kind when he’s hoisted aloft and carried all the way up to the Palladium’s vertiginous ceiling. But he’s also capable of touching sincerity, dedicating a number to his late panto co-star, Paul O’Grady.
Excellent too is rising star Rob Madge as a quick-witted Tinkerbell, leading an energetic mash-up of I Am What I Am and Born This Way. Gaunt’s buff hero is Pan by way of Nijinsky – every entrance is a hovering jeté – while ventriloquist Verdin impresses with a tight, pun-packed set. Gary Hind’s original songs are boringly sub-Disney, but there’s always a new distraction on the way: crocodile puppets invading the aisles or The Timbuktu Tumblers creating a human pyramid.
The production even answers the charge that there’s too little here for youngsters by inviting kids from the audience up on stage for a joyfully silly game, sweetly managed by Zerdin. A high-flying hit.
Until Jan 14. Tickets: 020 3925 2998; lwtheatres.co.uk
