Mother Goose

Published Monday 15 December 2008 at 10:10 by Chris High

This year it’s a case of Shake, Waddle and Roll at the Liverpool Everyman with a boisterous and exuberant cast taking on Mother Goose and turning out another Yuletide winner. As is traditional there are mishaps, forgotten lines and the usual water-spraying shenanigans aplenty, but in the end this is a show that is so alive it is positively contagious.

Rebecca Bainbridge, a delightfully attractive yet nasty Queen Narcissa, brings the loudest of hisses at all the right times, but mostly from the mums and kids in the audience, rather than from the dads, who can do little more than watch and wonder. Francis Tucker as Ma Goose along with fellow Everyman stalwart Adam Keast as King Bling bounce off each other with hilarious consequences. Impressive too are relative newcomers Luke Kempner, Tara Nelson and Matthew Quinn, who can all certainly carry a tune, whereas Nicky Swift’s Fairy Feathers is sweetness personified. The ability of each cast member to swap back and forth between stage and music pit to take up their instruments can only be applauded because, boy, these guys earn their pay.

Thanks in no small part to some beautifully outrageous costumes and a sumptuous set, this year’s rock’n’roll pantomime is a festive feast of fun, frocks and fairy lights that should not be missed.