4.5 STARS, December 15 – January 14. Despite his best efforts, William Gadsby Peet can't help but shout merrily along with Biggins and Co at the Richmond Theatre pantomime, Aladdin
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God this was terrible. But terrible in the same way as the music of James Blunt, a seventh helping of cheesecake or a 4am kebab are: you know you shouldn't, you definitely will, and amongst all the self -loathing and -recrimination is the inescapable knowledge that you are absolutely loving it. The rational part of your brain that says you enjoy Shakespeare and the music of Nirvana is all well and good, but occasionally it will get overriden by the irrational part screaming, 'HE JUST MADE A JOKE ABOUT GINGER NUTS WHILE HOLDING A PACK OF BISCUITS. LAUGH!'
I remember trying to explain the concept of pantomime to a friend from Denmark while I was backpacking around Australia: "So basically, a group of D-C list celebrities dress up in completely over the top drag and have slogans shouted at them by families, all while making smutty jokes and performing musical numbers." You could have done algebra with the man's look of nonplussed confusion, and it took me a full week of corroboration from other British backpackers before he accepted that I wasn't making the whole thing up to take the mick. He finally conceded that I was telling the truth with the wonderful Australianism: "You Poms are bloody weird you know."
While that may well be the case, Christmas isn't really Christmas without a jaunt to a local panto and, if you're looking to take the kids to one this year, you couldn't do much better than Richmond Theatre's offering of Aladdin. If you were to take a degree in pantomime (which, let's face it, a former polytechnic based somewhere around the Midlands is almost certainly already teaching) you couldn't hope to see a more classic example than this. It has all the ingredients of a traditional Christmas rib tickler: cross dressing, pop culture references, a script written by what I assume is a room full of not overly intelligent typewriter monkeys based out of an industrial estate in Slough, and, of course, Biggins.
You will never be as good at anything as Christopher Biggins is at pantomime; to steal a quote – from a West Ham vs Leicester City match report by Barney Ronay of all places/peoples – Biggins doesn't perform panto, he inflicts it upon others. Supposedly this is his penultimate season which is a bit like hearing Michelangelo wanted to stop half way through painting the roof of the Sistine Chapel, or that Boris Johnson has decided to start being faithful to his marriage. The man is an artist, flitting effortlessly between smutty innuendo, crowd participation and, at one point, an onstage sing along with a group of young children enjoying their birthdays that included a quite admirable turn on the trombone by a six year old called Max.
I wouldn't be surprised if by this point Christopher no longer needs to rehearse, he's probably just told what pantomime it is as he walks onstage and ad libs the script for fun. The absolute highlight of his performance was the plethora of ingeniously silly costumes he wore throughout. Every time Biggins went offstage, he would come back on in a different outfit. I bumped in to the Richmond Food & Drink Editor, Sophie Farrah, whose mum knows Mr Biggins, and apparently he actually owns a few of them himself. The mind boggles! Credit to Mike Coltman for designing such superlatively insane attire, and also to what I assume must have been an off duty Formula 1 team whipping them on and off Britain's premier panto dame behind the scenes.
SPOILER ALERT: if you are planning on buying tickets to Aladdin, I would recommend skipping past the below shots of Biggins' costumes, you will enjoy the show much more if each one comes as a surprise.
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I would love to see Christopher Biggins do something mundane like file his tax returns or eat a quiche, I imagine he'd still manage to find a way to make it hilarious. There is a part of the show that involves Biggins singing a duet with Count Arthur Strong and features the innovative use of an apple that I won't spoil for you. Further 'comic relief' is provided by Rikki Jay in the role of Wishee Washee, in much the same way that 'humanitarian relief' is occasionally provided by the American armed forces in the form of an air to surface missile. He delivered all of his many terrible lines with the manic enthusiasm of a particularly over-eager suicide bomber. Top marks for effort, it can't be easy delivering jokes as tired and awful as, "I recently discovered I was colourblind, it really hit me like a bolt out of the green".
Along with the traditional Christmas cracker humour came a number of rather impressive song and dance routines from a cast of professionals that probably die a little every time they come on stage – 'I was in Hairspray you know!'. Full credit to both Aladdin (AJ Jenks) and Jasmine (Denquar Chupak) for their admirable attempt to conduct a relatively serious love storyline in the midst of all the chaos; it must be hard singing a romantic duet knowing that Biggins is going to wander on stage and start screaming about his prawn balls at any given moment.
The cast of support dancers were similarly superb, executing impressive set pieces of dance from choreographer Paul Robinson that wouldn't look out of place in a West End musical. A particular highlight was Abanazar (played by Bob Harms) and his supremely villainous rendition of Better the Devil You Know. That said, I would like to know who exactly writers Jonathon Kiley and Alan McHugh were aiming to entertain with the cast's rather sexually charged dance routine to Jessie J, Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj's track Bang Bang. Possibly the pervy uncle in the family who drinks all the egg nog and makes inappropriate remarks at Christmas dinner?
On the more wholesome side of things, there's a troupe of adorable young actresses that occasionally totter on stage for some of the bigger routines – watching a couple of girls that couldn't be older than three or four get shepherded around the stage by a few of the older cast members is sure to warm even the grinchiest of hearts.
All in all this a perfect example of a traditional pantomime; a cacophony of silliness and drag that'll keep both adults and children entertained, not to mention, one of the last chances you'll have to see Christopher Biggins doing what he was put on this planet to do.
P.S. I deserve a medal for resisting the temptation throughout this review to indulge in an easy 'Oh no it isn't! Oh yes it is!' or 'He's behind you' gag. You are bloody welcome!
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