Jackie and the Beanstalk
Boasting more popular references than your average audience member could hope to appreciate in a single sitting, a welter of panto in-jokes and popular songs that span the decades, Johnny McKnight’s latest pantomime has many high points.
A scene from Jackie and the Beanstalk at Macrobert, Stirling
It is a strong cast, with a large and exceptional junior troupe, but there is no question that this is McKnight’s show as Dame Dot von Trott. It is just that the brighter his co-stars shine, the brighter he can be too.
Jo Freer excels as Fairy Mary Christmas, navigating the plot for the audience. Helen McAlpine is a properly feisty heroine Jackie with Natalie Toyne her singing, love-struck sister. Jonathan Holt is a villainously voiced, Prince Harry-esque, Count of Monty Bisto with Paul James Corrigan’s sidekick Billy Bisto a neat homage to the late Gerard Kelly.
Alison Brown’s costumes are constructions of kitsch art, from McKnight’s constantly changing toy shop-inspired outfits to Freer’s red Christmas tree-on-a-fairy combo and, in McAlpine’s Princess Beatrice-homage hat in the walk down.
The only downside to the imaginative and wildly variant plot is a preponderance of development in Act I. But once McKnight gets back to the jokes and the songs, this is an entertaining, intelligent celebration and deconstruction of the traditional Scottish pantomime.
Production information
- By:
- Johnny McKnight, who also directs and performs
- Composer:
- Alan Penman
- Management:
- Macrobert, Stirling
- Cast:
- Helen McAlpine, Jonathan Holt, Natalie Toyne, Jo Freer, Paul James Corrigan
- Design:
- Lisa Sangster
- Lighting:
- Dave Shea
- Costumes:
- Alison Brown
- Choreography:
- Karen Martin
Production information can change over the run of the show.
Run sheet
- MacRobert Stirling
- November 23 2011-January 7
Content is copyright © 2012 The Stage Media Company Limited unless otherwise stated.
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