Dick Whittington (Ipswich)
Artistic director Peter Rowe has revisited the story of Dick Whittington for this year's rock'n'roll pantomime. There are no shipwrecks, under-water scenes or visits to the shores of Morocco. Instead, the focus is on Dick, Alice Fitzwarren and King Rat.
© Mike Kwasniak Photography 2013
This rodent is a thoroughly nasty piece of work. Dan de Cruz makes him slimily green and athletic, as he kidnaps Alice (Nicola Hawkins) and drags her to his subterranean lair from which the dashing Dick (AJ Dean) and his sinuous black moggie Taffeta (CiCi Howells) must rescue her.
A hard-working cast of ten play all the parts, instrumental as well as vocal and physical. The Dame role of Sarah the cook is taken by Sean Kingsley, but the character is far less the centre of the story than in most productions.
The second main comic is Billy Bungalow, Alderman Fitwarren (Jofre Alsina)'s apprentice. He's not someone to be trusted and Tim Bonser comes in for more than the usual amount of knockabout in Rob Salmon's production.
Shirley Darroch is a glistening Fairy Bowbells, winging her rhyming couplets (Rowe knows his panto traditions) out into the audience. There are lots of local as well as London references for the audience to savour.
Diego Pitarch's set is the standard New Wolsey Theatre one for these shows – a central staircase with platforms for the musicians under Ben Goddard on either side. Good use is made of the grave-traps, but the usual family of furry or winged puppets is reduced to one rather perky rat.
"Dick Whittington" runs at the New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich until 25 January.
