Who doesn’t love Paddington? The winsome marmalade junkie has arrived at the Savoy Theatre in a musical version of the 2014 movie. First of all, the show is sensational. Absolute box-office gold, full of joy, mirth and spectacle. It’s also quite pricey but never mind.
Sceptics who feel indifferent to children’s fiction will be relieved to learn that the dyspraxic Peruvian asylum seeker doesn’t feature much in the story. Paddington’s main attribute is his physical clumsiness and once he succeeds in destroying the crockery and furniture at the Browns’ family home, he runs out of narrative possibilities. His fur is invitingly combustible. Could someone set him on fire? Not quite.
Instead he becomes the target of an evil trophy hunter, Millicent Clyde, who chases him across London with a crossbow hoping to shoot him dead and stuff his corpse with straw. But Paddington, entirely useless and inert, can’t get away from danger and has to be rescued by the kindly Browns and their friends. They become the tale’s accidental heroes.
Adrian Der Gregorian is excellent as the priggish Mr Brown, a safety expert by trade, who confronts his fears and discovers the thrill of taking risks. Amy Ellen Richardson plays Mrs Brown as a model of saintly patience who tolerates the rudeness of her mutinous eldest child. ‘I don’t want to be your friend, it’s bad enough being your daughter.’ The wonderful Tom Edden, as a gormless taxi driver, threatens to steal the show every time he appears. And Bonnie Langford plays a petite old dear, Mrs Bird, who saves Paddington by distracting a security guard at a critical moment. She invites the guard to join her in a raunchy dance number which seems way beyond her physical powers. But Langford, it turns out, is as nimble as a gazelle and she capers around the stage like a teenager at her first ballet class. She does the splits as well. Millicent Clyde (Victoria Hamilton-Barritt) makes a brilliant boo-hiss baddie and she even manages to hit Paddington smack in the chest with a steel bolt. Sadly he
recovers afterwards.
The show is sensational. Absolute box-office gold, full of joy, mirth and spectacle
The panto at Stratford East promises to defy tradition. Mother Goose is now Mama Goose and features ‘a true African dame’, according to the programme notes. Duane Gooden plays the role in a synthetic dress, a plastic wig, a false bust, a pair of joke-shop spectacles and heavily rouged lips. None of these details seem remotely African apart from Gooden’s Nigerian accent, which may be exaggerated for laughs. Like all good dames he adores puns. ‘I could talk about my west African roots but I’m not Ghana,’ he says. Next he cocks an ear at the crowd. ‘Kenya hear me at the back?’ He recounts his woes in the job market like a traditional music-hall act. ‘I lost my position as a psychic. Never saw that coming.’
Mama Goose lives with her son, Jack, and the family pet, Gary the Goose, played by Ché Walker as a laddish cockney with a triple-thick accent. The story begins when Gary is spotted by a greedy fairy who covets the golden eggs he lays. The fairy builds a sexy female love-bot, AI Jill, who sets out to seduce Jack and to trick him into handing over Gary.
For a panto, it’s a surprisingly good storyline. AI Jill develops feelings for Jack and she transcends her robotic nature by discovering human desire. Meanwhile Jack falls in love with AI Jill but he’s devastated to learn that her feelings are fake and that she’s part of a seedy plot to steal his goose. Will Jack be able to forgive AI Jill? Can she continue to grow as a human being or will she be forced to resume her robotic nature by the evil fairy?
The PM has turned into a pantomime joke
These are very engaging problems. And when the couple try to overcome their difficulties, the results are touching, sweet and funny. It’s great drama. Good acting too, especially from the supporting cast. Grace Venus plays an evil Tax Man and an athletic nightclub dancer in a chic gold suit. Jerome Lincoln does an enjoyable turn as the ditzy pop star Katy Perry, who wants to live in space. Elon Musk takes a lot of flak from the scriptwriters Vikki Stone and Tonderai Munyevu. The characters denounce him as ‘a space Karen’ and ‘a dangerous narcissist’. Mama Goose warns the crowd that Musk is a sorcerer who can hypnotise children and convince them that ‘billionaires are a good thing’.
The script includes political gags of variable quality. ‘Rachel Reeves needs a calculator.’ No one laughed at that. A modest dig at Angela Rayner fell flat. ‘Rules are rules, as Angela Rayner found out.’ An ironic quip about the PrimeMinister’s duplicity worked a lot better. ‘Let’s keep it a secret,’ says Mama Goose, ‘like Keir Starmer’s real opinions.’ Lots of laughs there. The PM has turned into a pantomime joke.
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