AFTER what seems like centuries of watching and reviewing pantomimes, it is always a great thrill to spot a superstar performance on a local stage, and wait until the national critics and award-giving organisations put that name in their best-of-the-year lists.

Salisbury Playhouse’s inventive, colourful, energetic and 100% fun version of Jack and the Beanstalk bursts into Christmas with all sorts of new ideas, terrific performances and a theme that is categorically MUSIC. Not only do the main characters have a band, but the fairy is an Elvis impersonator, Jill’s father is called Pavarotti and Dolly the Cow has her heels firmly in Pigeon Forge, if her heart is now in Salisburyshire. The conceit is that the Giant, who lives in Swindon-in-the-Sky, can’t stand music and has banned it from his fiefdom. His draconian rules are administered by Fleshcreep the Warden, slapping penalty notices on anyone who so much as hums a C.

We know the story, and this is perhaps the most entertaining way I have ever seen it told. With a cast of ten (including the voice of Mark Meadows) and a Young Company team of five, there is never a dull moment, whether it’s dancing to The King’s classics or much more modern rock, ducking out of the path of bats in the auditorium, or watching the antics and facial expressions of that most marvellous cow, played with total conviction (and much cud-chewing) by Eloise Runnette. The other Dolly would be delighted, as was the entire audience!

George Olney returns to Salisbury as a loveable Jack, with Nic James, in his extravagantly-moulded quiff as Fairy Fabulous, leading the goodies, and the hilarious Emma Norman as Fleshcreep for the other side. Isabella Mason is an energetic, wannabe pop superstar Jill, with Thomas Sutcliffe as her music-banning, former opera star dad, Pavarotti Perkins.

Dan Smith is a bawdy Dame Caroline Trotter in this Mach 2 pantomime, which had ALL the audience, from small children to great grannies, cheering from the outset, joining in at every opportunity with no encouragement needed, and relishing this fresh, vibrant new look at the old story.

All praise to writers Plested, Brown and Wilsher, and director Gareth Machin, for speeding through the business and getting on with the job of bringing excitement and joy to eager Christmas audiences.

See it if you can. I doubt you will find a better “traditional” panto this year. And watch out for Eloise Runnette, who has created a pantomime cow you will never forget.

GP-W

Photographs by Pamela Raith