Although it’s the Easter school holidays, Rapunzel, the current show at the Devonshire Park Theatre, has all the ingredients of a traditional Christmas pantomime. Singing, dancing, colourful sets and great costumes, but the thing that makes it so different from many other pantomimes, at Christmas or Easter, is the supremely funny script – not a groan-a-minute attempt at being funny, but a truly laugh-out-loud-from-start-to-finish triumph.
From the moment that the house lights dim, and a large video screen at the back of the stage lights up, the children (and adults) in the audience are drawn into the tale of the girl with the very long hair. Quite a lot of the story seems to be told during this opening video scene, but it prepares the children very nicely for the live action that is about to happen.
As the wicked witch Horrabella, Eastenders Carli Norris is perfectly cast. She wastes no time in getting the entire audience to “boo” and “hiss” as loud as they can and, under the obligatory green light, from the tip of her over-sized wig and all the way down to the floor, Horrabella is every inch the perfect panto baddie.
For every panto baddie there must be a goodie and, as you might guess, in this show that job is taken by Georgia Rowland-Elliott as Rapunzel. Determined to party her way through her 18th birthday, and not to marry the prince chosen for her by her father, she’s something of a rebel – but a rebel that the audience take to their hearts from the outset.
Blurring the lines between goodie and baddie is Lewes Roberts as Finn Strider, who starts the show as a thief who kidnaps the prince, takes his place, and then steals the royal crown from the King but, when he realises that he has feelings for Rapunzel, turns into the hero that he always dreamed of being.
The backing dancers, work very hard and keep the story moving along well but, at the end of the day (and this is the key to why this pantomime works so brilliantly well) they are mainly here to act as stooges for the comedy double act that seek every opportunity to mess around, go off-script, corpse the rest of the cast and generally bring supposed anarchy to the production!
As Joey the Jester and his brother, Silly Billy, Tom Swift and Ant Payne are just magnificent. Their humour suits everyone from three to 103 with jokes pitched at every level, including a few that had the adults in the audience looking at each other in disbelief and saying, “Did they really just say THAT in a family show!” Of course, the younger members of the audience are totally oblivious to the “Carry On” style comedy, and they go much more for the lavatorial humour and physical comedy – of which there is plenty.
It would, of course, be churlish of me to give away the elements of this production that make it’s staging so good, you will have to go and see the show to find out what they are, but, what I can say is this – If you want to laugh out loud watching a team of consummate professionals presenting one of the finest, funniest, Easter pantomime productions around – Rapunzel is a sure-fire winner!
***** Five Stars