DICK WHITTINGTON. To 3 January.
Salisbury.
DICK WHITTINGTON
by Mark Clements.
Salisbury Playhouse To 3 January 2009.
2.15pm & 7pm.
Runs 2hr 40min One interval.
TICKETS: 01722 320333.
www.salisburyplayhouse.com
Review Mark Courtice 31 December.
All the ingredients for tasty family fun.
Salisbury Playhouse's reputation for good natured, traditional and well-made pantomime for Christmas is safe with Dick Whittington this year. Mark Clements' script has just the right blend of silliness, awful jokes, traditional routines and soppy love scenes to satisfy the sort of whole family audience that traditionally turn up to this event.
Served by a hard-working and conspicuously capable cast and designs that combine wit with colour and glitter, the whole thing just works well. The creative team and company respect the traditional, but also draw the audience in with jokes, music and fun that make it clear we are not sitting at a museum piece.
Hannah Chissick directs with energy, good timing (so the routines don't drag while the story pushes on) and a sense that tradition does not have to be boring. The thigh-slapping Dick of Emma Westhead and charming Alice of Sarah-Lee Dicks can share love duets without a modern audience feeling odd because time has been taken to tactfully set up the convention, which is therefore shared by audience and players.
Peter Whitcomb's designs are splendid, with grotty sewers providing a "rat run" that frames picture-book London town sets, and some carefully painted front cloths. The costumes, glittering and colourful with neat and often witty detail, show no sign of the credit crunch by providing changes for everyone.
There’s an athletic cat, a baddy who we know is going to end up legal as an Elvis impersonator and a pink-haired fairy with a South London accent (we are in Wiltshire’s version of London). Peter Caulfield's Billy is easy to like (especially if you are little and like poo jokes), while Stephen Matthews' Sarah the Cook is an object lesson in Damehood. One of those actors whose brain operates at hyper speed he can take time to register what is going on in the audience, and get just the right ad lib. The routines (including a really messy pie-making) that rely on his timing, ability to be both transgressive and traditional, and his good nature, are all terrific.
Fairy Bow-Bells: Laura Checkley.
King Rat: Joseph Alessi.
Billy: Peter Caulfield.
Sarah the Cook: Stephen Matthews.
Alice Fitzwarren: Sarah-Lee Dicks.
Alderman Fitzwarren/Sultan of Morocco: Frank Ellis.
Dick Whittington: Emma Westhead.
Tommy the Cat: Nyron Levy.
Director: Hannah Chissick.
Designer: Philip Witcomb.
Original Music/Musical DirectorL Andrew Allpass.
Lighting; Peter Hunter.
Sound: Alex Twiselton.
ChoroegrapherL Sam Spencer-Lane.
2009-01-02 01:56:34