Dick Whittington

Published Wednesday 12 December 2007 at 15:00 by Richard Edmonds

Just exactly what do you do with all these one-time fairy tale characters lost in a highly-coloured world happily without logic? You mix them up together and just hope that the resulting gallimaufry works.

Well, in this case it does, and the evening is glitzy and great fun, thanks to those brilliant comedy drolls, the Krankies, without whom the evening would be bereft of comic emphasis.

One of the great highlights of the evening is the Krankies and their hilarious ventriloquist act (with Janette Krankie lurching backward and forwards as the doll) which is in a direct line back to the fifties and the old twice-nightly music halls, and thus is a collector’s item in its own right.

Here, these inspired drolls practically stopped the show, which was the case with everything else they did. They are one of the last of a great line of theatre comics in the tradition of Joey Grimaldi and the Lupinos - they are a national treasure and thus I designate them.

Elsewhere, the extremely likeable Sam Kane (who sounds American the moment he opens his mouth to sing) is Dick Whittington, the honcho with the faithful moggie and he knows how to work the house.

Brian Godfrey, working with a set of dud gags, is merely twinkly as the Dame. Dani Harmer as the good fairy element must learn immediately how to manage her legs when flying - kicking a la breast stroke simply will not do - sorry.

Leslie Grantham looks more maudlin than mean as Dirty Rat in a wretched  Victorian tailcoat, while everybody else is roughly dressed in medieval gear, in sets of some beauty by Hugh Durrant, which I cheered in the same panto a decade or more ago.

Grantham was also denied a costume and headdress for the splendid final walkdown, which is inexplicable and may well have accounted for his disgruntled demeanour.