C’EST MAGNIFIQUE !
Napoleon, defeated at Trafalgar, vows revenge on Britain and its “bootlicking monoglot monarchists”. Stalking round in breeches and bicorn hat, Matthew Kellett, a wonderful operatic baritone, brandishes the arm he claims to have shot off Admiral Nelson. A apprehensive puppet fact-checker pokes theough the velvet curtain complaining that that is anachronistic nonsense, the arm was misplaced years earlier, and will get shot with Napoleon’s sidearm. Which is a baguette.
Back in London, George III in his nightshirt (Elliott Broadfoot) performs air guitar on his sceptre, Jennie Jacobs’ slinky Duke of Wellington mansplains annoyingly to Princess Georgina, who could presumably change gender later (Amy J Payne). Everyone is apprehensive about paying for the subsequent conflict. Because, clearly, the nation’s wealth is in a vault with the Black Prince’s ruby which solely opens with Nelson’s fingerpint. So they should get the arm again and “bash ’em in the Beaudelaire!”… Napoleon should resist this, helped by the returning ghost of Marie Antoinette (Rosie Strobel, no much less) and a quick refrain of headless guillotinees. It is usually troublesome to recollect there are solely six within the forged, the latest being Rochelle Jack, on a debut simply outta Mountview.
And off we go in a torrent of Bonaparte puns, spirited songs from rock and pop to operatic – that is Charles Court opera, in any case – plus magnificent disguises, moustaches, jokes turning on a sixpence from low to literary (cow puns, Sue Gray puns, George Orwell jokes. And an evidence of why the Trafalgar Square statue of the bodily titchy Lord Nelson is 15ft tall: “it’s a 3 to 1 Horatio” ). There are many ridiculous accents and a few top-grade bodily clowning, notably from Broadfoot and Kellett. It’s quick, witty, tuneful, and excellently foolish. All important panto moments are right here – shoutbacks, a pie, viewers members recruited briefly, sly in-jones about costume modifications.
I got here to it contemporary from cheering John Savournin’s wonderful bass rants because the Pirate King on the Coliseium, scroll under . But right here, as yearly, he pops up as co-author with Benji Sperring of the Charles Court OPera panto. It needs to be a nationally acknowledged occasion: final yr I meanly solely gave their Greek romp 3+ a pantomouse for daftness, including as much as 4. This one continues to be sillier, musically even higher, and so rattling intelligent – with its torrent of goofy gags for severe individuals – that the mice queued as much as be included. My solely dismay is that it’s in such a small home so not sufficient right-thinking individuals will see it. But Penny and Stella and their Jermyn regulars are, in any case, absolutely the cream of small-scale London theatre. Merry Christmas, Jermyn!
Jermynstreetheatre.co.uk to five jan
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