Clear story-telling, sets like pages from a nursery rhyme book, pretty and imaginative costumes - these are the hallmarks of Middlesbrough’s pantomime.
Added ingredients are performers who engage instantly with children and a script that alternates between rhyming couplets and rude words of the kind that youngsters relish.
This is a traditional pantomime, focused on giving children a stimulating experience - vocally and visually.
Claire King, as Belladonna - the Wicked Fairy, resplendent in hues of nightshade, whips up wild reactions to her jibes. Liam Mellor, deceptively gormless as Simple Simon, becomes everyone’s loveable pal. Colin Roberts, as Dame Durdan, makes all his entrances connect with children. Josephine McHugh, as Fairy Vegetable, uses a ditzy manner and singsong delivery to keep the narrative zipping along.
Catherine Wainwright is a traditional thigh-slapping, high-booted Jack, and Louise Franck a proper princess in pink satin.
The speciality act is a life-size puppet fantasy in ultra-violet light, performing Belladonna’s sorcery in psychedelic colours after she turns the princess into a dove and sets out to catch her. Other visual delights are the goblin and troll masks for the dance ensembles, a cute Daisy the Cow, and an enormous Giant Blundebore construction that booms out his tyrannical threats.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
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