Cinderella
The Hackney panto’s USP is Clive Rowe: less a dame than a roiling force of nature, post pandemic he has not only starred in every panto at the Empire but directed them too, in what has increasingly felt like a one man (in a frock) show.
But what happens to the one-man show when the man (and his frock) aren’t there?
Rowe is such a panto purist that he refuses to perform in productions of Cinderella, reasoning that there is no dame role in it. So this year, he’s directing only. And it’s probably not a bad idea: the underlying fundamentals of this year’s panto are stronger than in recent years, where the secondary characters feel like they’ve been left to wither on the vine while Rowe swans off with the glory.
This show’s heart lies with its villains: Alexandra Waite-Roberts is the very definition of ‘pantomime villain’ as Oblivia, Cinderella’s cacklingly evil stepmother who in this version offed her stepdaughter’s dad years previously and barely makes any effort to conceal the fact. ‘Ugly sisters’ is a term that has fallen out of fashion in recent years, but in the roles that used to be called that, George Heyworth and Kat B are great fun as Nausea and Flatula, two women who aren’t so much evil as incredibly dumb. In the absence of Rowe, the audience work falls to them – they make a solid enough job of it – and they memorably join forces with Nicholas McLean’s prissy Buttons for a run through ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ that lasts something like 10 minutes and heavily...