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A fun(ish) game you can play in the darkening days of late November is ‘guess this year’s big panto song’. I’m still not sure which 2018 earworm will riddle every fairytale plot in town, but a highlight of Lyric Hammersmith’s ‘Dick Whittington’ was a triumphant ‘Baby Shark’: and because the Lyric’s annual Christmas kitsch-fest is consistently the edgiest panto around, it starred in an under-the-sea grime mash-up that had the whole crowd cheering in baffled glee.
Director Jude Christian and Cariad Lloyd have teamed up to write a panto that feels quirkily current. Purists might be disappointed that it doesn’t milk the genre’s many, thoroughly weird traditions (although there’s still plenty of sweet-chucking/‘he’s behind you!’ chants in there). But what it does instead is refreshing: super-clear storytelling, loads of internet-age lols, and a persuasive message about acceptance.
Admittedly, the story’s Brexit-era punch might have been stronger if they’d made London newcomer Dick (Luke Latchman) something other than a daffy Welshman. After getting fleeced by big city shysters, Dick ends up in prosaically-named panto dame Sarah’s greasy spoon. With ten years as the Lyric’s resident dame under his belt, Carl Mullaney’s performance is wonderfully slick, whether he’s preening in one of designer Jean Chan’s astonishingly creative get-ups, reeling off fast-food puns or sourcing a bashful paramour from Row E.
Unlike many pantos, this ‘Dick Whittington’ never drags its feet. Dick’s rise to become Mayor of London unfolds in pacy style, with hilarious interventions from Mayor Pigeon (Margaret Cabourn-Smith) and Bow Belles (Jodie Jacobs). The in-house band constantly peppers the action with exhilarating covers of pretty much every tune you might have hummed in 2018, reimagined with knowing, fairytale-friendly lyrics. What it is missing is an underlying sense of wintry darkness behind all the feelgood Christmassy spirit. Queen Rat (Sarah-Louise Young) isn’t the most terrifying of villains – more pet mouse than fanged pest – and Dick’s such a nonentity that it’s hard to root for him when he eventually gets the top job, even if he probably deserves it for putting up with the endless string of knob gags that fly his way.
Still, what ‘Dick Whittington’ does do is take this thing we call ‘panto’, give it a good shake, and reimagine it at every turn. It feels like just the right way to mark a decade of Lyric pantomimes: making traditions feel featherlight, in the best possible way.