In regional theatres up and down the country, people who still know how to do panto put on a show at Christmas for an audience who may never step inside a theatre at any other time. In Coventry, that person is Iain Lauchlan, who has written, directed and played Dame in every Belgrade Theatre panto for the last thirty years.
This year’s show is Dick Whittington. It’s a proper, old school, family treat, with sweets for the children, booster seats and ear defenders for the very young (this show is loud), drinks in plastic beakers for the grown-ups and selfies for everyone to prove you were there. There is a soft play area in the foyer and games and puzzles in the programme in case it all gets a bit too much, but it’s Saturday night, they’re playing pre-show Christmas hits in November and we are totally up for it.
After an overture, Fairy Bowbells (Gabriela Harris) enters stage right to set up the story (the good characters always enter stage right), King Rat (Andy Hockley) enters stage left (bad guys always enter stage left) in a green biker jacket to introduce himself as the villain of the piece, and we’re off.
The country is overrun with rats, it’s all part of King Rat’s masterplan for world domination, starting with Coventry and London. For reasons I didn’t quite catch, Dick Whittington (Lois Brook) abandons Coventry to its fate and goes to London with his cat Tommy (Sam Woods). He gets a job at Alderman Fitzwarren’s (Declan Wilson) store where Tommy chases the rats away and Dick falls in love with the Alderman’s daughter, Alice (also Gabriela Harris). We then meet Idle Jack (Craig Hollingsworth) and his mum, Sarah the cook (Iain Lauchlan). Alderman Fitzwarren sails to Morocco in the Saucy Sal to buy exotic fabrics to sell in London, but it turns out Morocco is also overrun with rats. Tommy saves the day, and a grateful Sultan of Morocco sends them all home, laden with riches.
The plot is broadly faithful to the original story, but its main function is to serve as a hook on which to hang a sequence of stock panto routines. The ghost gag, ‘it’s behind you!’, scene is here, as are the slosh scene, the ultraviolet light transformation scene, the community song, the kids invited up on stage from the audience, the birthday wishes; you name it and this show delivers it. There’s a live pit band under the direction of Hayley Gibbs, high energy dance numbers choreographed by Jenny Phillips and a cast of triple-threat actor-singer-dancers who knock every number out of the park. If you’ve never been to a pantomime before, then this is how it’s done, complete with cross-dressed leads, beautifully painted backdrop cloths and the pantomime dame’s outrageous frocks.
At times, the script strays into topical territory, which is not what it does best. They just about get away with references to TikTok and Mo Farah, but a joke about wanting to be as famous as Christine Lampard sailed over the audience’s heads. I assume she must have been in the news when Iain Lauchlan last did Dick Whittington here in 2016, but I’d be surprised if that line survives to the end of the run. There is some mild innuendo—with a lead character called Dick, it was probably unavoidable—but the fart gags went down better than the dick jokes.
The self-referential, metatheatrical patter between Craig Hollingsworth and Iain Lauchlan is fun. At one point, there is a fire on board the Saucy Sal, and Jack suggests they call the Fire Brigade. Lauchlan says: “how are the Fire Brigade supposed to get here in the middle of the ocean?”. Hollingsworth: “I don’t know, you wrote it.” Everyone else stays in the world of the play, but Hollingsworth and Lauchlan play that slippage between panto world and our world beautifully.
The show is at its best when it sticks to the traditional material. Craig Hollingsworth is terrific in the Buttons / Wishee Washee / Idle Jack, ‘Hiya boys and girls!’ clown role, and Iain Lauchlan oozes class as the Dame. He is in his seventies now, and at times he looked a little tired, but then he would slip into a physical comedy routine and the years just fell away.
They don’t mollycoddle their audiences at The Belgrade. A rather elderly member of the audience called Dave was called up several times to participate in the hunt for King Rat, and he got covered in foam in the slosh scene. And you know that gag where an actor pretends to throw a bucket of water over the audience but it’s just confetti or glitter? Not in Coventry it isn’t—when they do immersive theatre you get immersed.
This is a show steeped in tradition and delivered with energy and style. If you can get to Coventry, then it’s worth seeing, but if you can’t, then check out your local panto instead. It is a weirdly and uniquely British institution, and we’re lucky to have it.
Reviewer: Andrew Cowie