EVEN now, in early January, the pantomime season is still in full swing in Edinburgh. Oh yes it is!
Auld Reekie’s famous big stage panto has relocated from the King’s Theatre to its splendid sister venue the Festival Theatre, while the campaign continues to fund the redevelopment of The King’s. The show – which, as ever, boasts the very considerable pantomime talents of Allan Stewart and Grant Stott – switches from Tollcross to Nicolson Street for at least two years.
As we can see in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the move is a case of many things changing, while much stays the same. The Festival Theatre stage is wider and deeper than the boards at the King’s.
This allows for a larger cast, with more dancers, for example. It also enables an old-school cast of seven performers with dwarfism, their character names altered carefully to avoid the attentions of Disney’s lawyers.
The sheer scale of the theatre’s stage creates the possibility for the spectacular moment in which Liz Ewing’s evil Queen Dragonella (below) flies above the front rows of the stalls while mounted on the back of a tremendous, and decidedly scary, fire-breathing dragon.
Stewart, at 72 years of age, is impressively agile as he darts back and forth across the wide Festival Theatre stage. The grand dame maintains his excellent relationship with the Edinburgh audience as he takes on the role of Nurse May, mother to Jordan Young’s hilarious panto dafty Muddles and meddling adversary of Stott’s Lord Lucifer of Leith, henchman of Queen Dragonella.
For his part, Stott – who proclaims himself to be the most gorgeous “tidy” among all the men of Edinburgh – is at his boo-inducing best (not least when he winds up the Hearts fans by departing the stage proclaiming “’mon the Hibs!”).
This is the second outing for Edinburgh’s big panto without the inestimable services of Andy Gray (who, sadly, passed away, at the far too young age of 61, in 2021). The Rab C Nesbitt and River City actor would have brimmed with pride, one suspects, to see his daughter Clare Gray in the major role of Queen Dragonella’s punky and rebellious daughter Princess Lavinia (a character which, to use a baseball analogy, she absolutely knocks out the park).
The typically zippy script by Harry Michaels and Allan Stewart creates plenty of space for silly games (such as the musical and physical hilarity that is The Twelve Days of Christmas, and a fantastic tongue twister about short sleeved shirts in Sighthill).
However, not for the first time with the capital’s big panto, I found myself feeling that one doesn’t need to be a prude to find that some of the adult gags sail a little close to the wind for a family show.
That minor complaint notwithstanding, Francesca Ross (Snow White) and Brian James Leys (Prince Hamish) bring fine voice to the musical theatre roles.
An enraptured opening night audience testified to the success of the show’s shift to the Festival Theatre. Until January 22: www.capitaltheatres.com
