Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph theatre had to cancel almost half the run of its Christmas show because of coronavirus cases in the company. But, like the previous year’s The Snow Queen, they wisely filmed Jack and the Beanstalk for online audiences. Which means that, mid-January, eight-year-old Hilda and I get to see a panto together after Covid self-isolation put paid to our festive outings.
Nick Lane’s adaptation, directed and choreographed by Gemma Fairlie, has a daydreaming hero whose head is in the clouds even before he starts to climb. But this is a fairytale grounded in modern-day reality. Jack lives with his mum in “an ordinary house on an ordinary street” in Scarborough. The cow is a battered old black-and-white bicycle (albeit with tail and ears) that he intends to trade at Cash Converters. He’s conned by the school bully into swapping it for a magic beanbag and the stalk springs up right in his back garden.
Hilda likes the idea of giving her own bike ears and a tail but she says it’s not quite as fun as the super-long cow Daisy, played by socially distanced actors in Coventry Belgrade’s 2020 panto film, which she loved. “Is this one a musical or a panto?” she asks early on. That’s not just because of the frequency of Simon Slater’s songs – which efficiently drive the story and flesh out the characters – but also an initial shortage of truly delirious silliness.
Happily, this is remedied by Jack’s trip up the beanstalk with a mysterious new friend, Jill. He meets a flamenco-loving hen (pluckily played by Alicia Mckenzie) who sports a fake moustache and waistcoat with gold lamé trim, which is pleasingly random in the traditional panto style. Designer Helen Coyston has a nice line in trousers: Jill’s are decorated with clouds befitting their journey into the skies, while Jack sports end-of-the-pier stripes.
Props are stashed around the set in bean-shaped boxes and the stalk shoots up around a playground-type structure complete with a slide that will entice younger viewers. Hilda likes that Jack is the same age as her, but detects that Jacob Butler, in the five-strong, all-adult cast, is “quite tall for an eight-year-old”.
The story is told with chapter titles shouted out by Butler (“Four: Everything Goes Bonkers!”) and the weather has a supporting role that recalls Slater and Lane’s The Snow Queen. There are plenty of nice, off-the-wall touches: Jack’s mum has an irrational fear of hippos, duplicitous bully Danny (well played by Loris Scarpa) is the headteacher’s son – “he pretends to be nice!” mutters Hilda, outraged – and there are fears that the Giant has eaten the Easter Bunny and that Santa might be gobbled up next. The bond between Butler and Jessica Dennis (as Jack’s mum) is tender but never over-sentimental and Hilda loves Sheri Lineham’s performance as Jill.
If it’s a little strange to quietly watch the call-and-response of panto at the desktop, just the two of us, the in-the-round theatre’s audience are present in most shots and gamely cheer when required, helping to make this a winter warmer.
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