This winter, audiences are invited somewhere over the rainbow with Wicked Witches – A Popular Panto!, where they can enjoy a Wicked and The Wizard of Oz inspired pantomime at London’s Pleasance Theatre. In a unique collaboration with The Vaults, The Pleasance will present two different versions of the show, with an all-ages performance for the family, and a separate, outrageous after dark adults-only show. Both versions promise a festive walk down the Yellow Brick (Caledonian) Road for a gloriously camp Christmas spectacular, packed with cabaret, pop parody, and plenty of laughs for those young and old alike.
Billing itself as “fabulous queer cabaret take on the classic panto tradition….an incredible cast, uniting stalwarts of the queer nightlife, drag and panto scenes”. However, I’m not sure if it’s not over-selling on the “adult” aspect of the production and I didn’t feel it met the bar to claim itself as “classic panto tradition”. It all feels a little sanitised apart from an occasional naughty word thrown in here and there. It doesn’t feel especially clever.
There is a lot of repetition – the word “non-binary” mentioned many times when we get it after first usage. And the Tin Man taking the chance to reflect and decide he’s a Tin Woman in the first half. The joke about “which mountain”? and it’s named “Witch mountain” went on forever. There are lots of clever ideas but none work especially well. Relying heavily on the cast to make what they can of the script the production would benefit from more songs and some choreography.
The cast manually walk the half-tabs to close or open them but their edges are not tied off. This results in the end of each scene having a cloth pulled but it’s often pulled too far exposing the edges which reveals the upstage. The next couple on-stage have to start their scene pulling out the edges to fix the cloth. This was funny the first time but when it happens so often it just feels a little tatty.
There are a lot of ideas – such as building a yellow brick wall. Of course we get the elusion to Trump but it isn’t really developed very much. Many scenes are two-handers and at times it felt as though the entertainment came from the actor rather than the character performance.
The video contributions from Corbyn and Sir Ian are great!
Perhaps I’m too old-fashioned – I like my fairy to be stage right appearing in a pyro flash and my witch to arrive stage left in a green spot with pyro bang. I only want the fairy to be bad if a spell has caused it not because she is bad. Adult panto, in my opinion, can be traditional and naughty but must have songs and dance. I suspect the audience enjoyed this show a lot more than I did.
Wicked Witch Gigi Zahir/ Crayola The Queen (George Zahir Mawji-Bull) (they/them)
Good Witch Eleanor Burke/ Apple Derrieres (she/her)
Tin 2.0 Lew Ray (they/she)
Dorothy (Dor) Rosanna Suppa (they/them)
Scarecrow Nick Mac Duff (he/they)
Writer and Director Shane ShayShay Konno (they/them)
Dramaturg Niall Moorjani (they/them)
Set and Costume Designer Isabella Van Braeckel (she/her)
Sound Designer Rudy Percivall (he/him)
Company Stage Manager Lauren Lambert Moore (she/her)
On-stage ASM Nick MacDuff (he/they)
Creative Producer Josie Underwood (she/her)
Associate Producer Susannah Bond, The Vaults (she/her)
Executive Producer Ellie Simpson, Pleasance Theatre (she/her)
Social Media @ThePleasance
@thevaultslondon
@shayshayshow
Website https://www.pleasance.co.uk/