Stage review: Jack & the Beanstalk at Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield

Huddersfield panto, Jack & the Beanstalk, is a bit like a glass of Christmas punch, slow to warm you up but once it hits the spot it leaves you with a nice, warm uplifting feeling.
FAMILY FUN: Jack & The Beanstalk at Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield. Picture: Andrew BillingtonFAMILY FUN: Jack & The Beanstalk at Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield. Picture: Andrew Billington
FAMILY FUN: Jack & The Beanstalk at Lawrence Batley Theatre, Huddersfield. Picture: Andrew Billington

This is Lawrence Batley Theatre’s second panto, and I applaud them for bringing this long-held British tradition back to the 23-year-old venue once more. It is a traditional offering in that it features young ‘sunbeams’, although it might have been nice to feature them in a key number with Dame Trott, played with nice tongue-in-cheek naughtiness by Robin Simpson. The audience singalong was Old Macdonald, nice and easy to remember when there’s no songsheet to follow, and there were some lovely touches; look out for Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.

If I had one criticism it is that the front of the show was too wordy and that the solo gag monologues were overly long, particularly Dame Trott’s, but, once past this, the show really took on a life of its own and picked up pace. Times are hard for young Jack and his mother. Forced to sell his beloved cow, poor Jack comes home with nothing but a few beans. But when the beans grow into a giant beanstalk, the silly lad – aka Thomas Cotran – finds himself in a world of thrills and spills. Declan Wilson’s King Crackpot was as broad as a Barnsley chop whilst his songstress daughter, Megan Turner as Princess Jill, was straight out of Liverpool’s Cavern Club. The scenery was absolutely beautiful, some of the best I have seen in a small venue like this for some time, the dame costumes excellent and the sound first class. Resident ‘baddy’, Nightshade, played by James McLean was suitably nauseous. A fun night.

To January 6.

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