If you wanted an image of the courage of British theatre in a really flippin' awful year, then it would be that. Performers trying their hardest to help audiences enjoy themselves. Battling through, against the odds. Never has panto seemed more precious.
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It’s a fascinating, slightly sombre panto that’ll delight kids with a taste for the macabre, even if it lacks the usual festive sweetness.
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This version by Carl Miller and Robert Hyman is deeply respectful of earlier incarnations but remains resolutely a TRSE production, bursting with colour and invention.
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It might have been more successful as purely a children’s show but its thin on crossover appeal and feels – at two and a half hours on opening night – overlong and somewhat grinding.
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