BEWARE OF GREEKS BRINGING GAGS
Where does Kylie get her kebabs? From Jason’s doner van! If that makes you scuttle away in fright, you have not yet achieved the correct seasonal adaptation to Panto season. Work on it. Sometimes surrender is the only way.
I was a bit startled at first by this show – a ridiculous echo of classical Greece (as if we hadn’t just had one of those as a Prime Minister) . But that is because I had only seen Charles Court Opera in more musically serious, if light-hearted, shows. But their annual pantos under John Savournin have a keen and hearty following, and judging by last night’s willingness to laugh, clap in time, shout encouragement to Hermes the incompetent deliveryman and participate in a highly unusual gameshow, no spoilers, they’re growing more fans. .
So pull up your Socrates, make no Apollogies, and after a long festive day struggling round your local shopping Centaur, enjoy Stewart Charlesworth’s marvellous multicoloured classical background and daft headgear. Take your inner – or outer – kid and wince-along happily to the adventures of Penelope and her faithful friend Trojan the horse as they set out – via the Cyclops – to rescue Odysseus from Circe without all being turned into pigs. It’s as if Horrible Histories got drunk with the makers of South Park, and enlisted a schoolboy Classic Set who wish there was more in the ancient Hellenic canon about farting. Then add songs happily based on anything from American Pie to Stayin’ Alive and Rasputin.
Actually, it was the songs which quite rapidly won me round; the cast of five are all highly competent belters, but Emily Cairns in particular has a beautiful voice, and ther are one or two rather poignant moments. And to Charybdis you over any doubt, I must say that Scylla is magnificent. Short, noisy, fun. But keep your Greek friends away from it or they’ll be confirmed in their view that Britain is too frivolous to hang on to those marbles.
Box office jermynstreettheatre.co.uk to 31 dec
rating: well, add a seasonal daft Panto-mouse for enhancement
theatreCat 