Jack and the Beanstalk: What a Whopper!
Review by Sam
⭐️⭐️
He’s Behind You! returns to the Charing Cross Theatre for their second annual adult pantomime.
Twisting panto on its head, the show follows Jack on his quest to find something GIANT in this naughty interpretation of a classic story. It features all the traditional segments that audiences expect but adult-ified, pushing boundaries and cramming as many filthy jokes in as possible. What remains is a crude and cheeky panto experience which modernises a traditional story.
The set design by David Shields was spectacular, using impressive builds to transform the stage with high quality production design worthy of a bigger theatre. The songs by Jon Bradfield are entertainingly fun and original, however poor sound design meant certain vocals were drowned out by over amplified tracks. Enhancing an already grand scaled production is a comedic ensemble who show their love for being part of the mayhem.
Mathew Baldwin returns as the pantomime Dame in a hilariously camp performance that showcases high-level experience of theatre, finding constant humour through perfect patter. For me the stand out performances were Joe Grundy and Laura Anna-Mead, who both had the strongest vocals and comic timing amongst the cast. However, despite good performances and impressive production design, not all jokes landed as intended.
Dark humour and extreme smut are injected into the piece consistently due to the adult-skewed nature, and when these land the crowd are loud to let the performers know. Sadly not all were crowd pleasers, with pauses for laughter met with fairly muted cheers and applause. The dirty humour begins to then feel overused and too heavily relied on, and as the show went on this began to feel more apparent. The run time ended up feeling too long for the piece, and perhaps would have benefited from keeping the show to one act.
If you’re after a camp, silly and outrageous pantomime this festive season then look no further. What a Whopper! is a raunchy panto, which whilst in need of improvements will still leave you with plenty of risqué jokes to sell at market.