By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: *****

WHEN?: Sunday 8 December 2024, runs through 12 January 2025 RUNTIME: 150 minutes (with a 20-minute interval)

What would Morecambe and Wise do?

• Read on for reasons including how this is the funniest, most heartfelt, joyous and dazzling the Palladium pantomime has ever been

While the concept of watching scheduled terrestrial television fast fades into oblivion, this year the producers of the London Palladium pantomime look back across its most recent incarnation – our reviews include Cinderella, Dick Whittington, Snow White, Goldilocks, and Pantoland at the Palladium, in both 2020 and 2021, and Jack And The Beanstalk – and think instead 1976 Morecambe and Wise throwing everything at Angela Rippon and seeing how she can cope. (Clue: she became a national treasure.)

Channel 5’s cruise ship entertainer Jane McDonald wouldn’t have been our choice to follow the hilarious Jennifer Saunders riffing off Absolutely Fabulous in 2023 here and indeed doesn’t appear until late in the 1st half with Julian Clary (Jack and the Beanstalk, London Palladium) warning ominously she’s loitering in the wings ‘stroking her whippet’.

We don’t think we’ve ever laughed quite so loud as when McDonald does appear as Maid Marion singing Dusty Springfield’s You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me while her unlikely beau Robin Hood played by Clary reacts to every line including sniffing her splayed fingers at 1 point and exclaiming: ‘Cheese and Onion crisps!’

Others have described Clary’s humour as a ‘tsunami of smut’ but it really depends upon the understanding you bring to it and the words themselves are suggestive at best/worst (sample line: ‘I’ve got a lot of merry men to keep occupied. It’s a wonder I can walk.’)

What the Palladium gives us is a pantomime that has dispensed of its rather tedious novelty acts and instead embraces Rob Madge (My Son’s A Queer But What Can You Do, Garrick Theatre) setting the scene as narrator The Spirit Of Sherwood while underlining the need for someone we can all get behind – no making up your own jokes at the back – while covering Bonnie Tyler’s Holding Out For A Hero.

2 of our most recently celebrated West End turns feature here with Marisha Walace playing the Sheriff of Nottingham and riffing off the performance which won her our 2023 Best Theatre Actress (Guys And Dolls, Bridge Theatre) monsta and Charlie Stemp, our Best Theatre Actor (Crazy For You, Gillian Lynn Theatre), raising his leg higher than anyone in theatre before or since as dance supremo and Hood sidekick Alan-a-Dale.

This is already our 3rd panto of the season and Greenwich Theatre, usually a reliable pantomime, rather lost its mojo this year in a dull 60s-set time travelling escapade while Andrew Pollard, former Greenwich Theatre panto writer, has a more up to date and knowing take on Cinderella at Islington’s King’s Head Theatre starring Drag Race UK‘s Ella Vaday.

Clary as Robin Hood is, as ever, inspired and while we can never do him justice we particularly enjoyed his never-too-early take down of Gregg Wallace (we just knew he would attempt it and it was perfect) and his: ‘Do you know what I was doing when I was 23? Anything in trousers. What a terrible thing to say. But it’s true.’

We’ve seen this Palladium pantomime every year since it’s most recent incarnation in 2015, Covid permitting, and this is the funniest, most heartfelt, joyous and dazzling it’s ever been.

This production has revitalised this venue with a family friendly show that isn’t afraid to show Britain at its most diverse and with a cheeky wink and double entendre.

There’s no excuse for theatregoers not to buy a ticket for this absolute sensation of a Christmas show and if television programmers want something people might actually choose to watch in their schedules this is what Morecambe and Wise would do.

Oh, and there’s the most joyous surprise near the show’s close which we won’t spoil, so please don’t leave before the end.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy London Palladium pantomime Tickets
• Have you seen a London Palladium pantomime before and what did you think of this 1? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
• Enjoyed this preview? Follow monstagigz on Twitter @NeilDurham, email neildurham3@gmail.com and check us out on Instagram and Facebook