C’EST MAGNIFIQUE !
Napoleon, defeated at Trafalgar, vows revenge on Britain and its “bootlicking monoglot monarchists”. Stalking around in breeches and bicorn hat, Matthew Kellett, a fine operatic baritone, brandishes the arm he claims to have shot off Admiral Nelson. A worried puppet fact-checker pokes theough the velvet curtain complaining that this is anachronistic nonsense, the arm was lost years earlier, and gets shot with Napoleon’s sidearm. Which is a baguette.
Back in London, George III in his nightshirt (Elliott Broadfoot) plays air guitar on his sceptre, Jennie Jacobs’ slinky Duke of Wellington mansplains annoyingly to Princess Georgina, who may possibly change gender later (Amy J Payne). Everyone is worried about paying for the next war. Because, obviously, the nation’s wealth is in a vault with the Black Prince’s ruby which only opens with Nelson’s fingerpint. So they need to get the arm back and “bash ’em in the Beaudelaire!”… Napoleon must resist this, helped by the returning ghost of Marie Antoinette (Rosie Strobel, no less) and a brief chorus of headless guillotinees. It is sometimes difficult to remember there are only six in the cast, the newest being Rochelle Jack, on a debut just outta Mountview.
And off we go in a torrent of Bonaparte puns, spirited songs from rock and pop to operatic – this is Charles Court opera, after all – plus magnificent disguises, moustaches, jokes turning on a sixpence from low to literary (cow puns, Sue Gray puns, George Orwell jokes. And an explanation of why the Trafalgar Square statue of the physically titchy Lord Nelson is 15ft tall: “it’s a 3 to 1 Horatio” ). There are many ridiculous accents and some top-grade physical clowning, notably from Broadfoot and Kellett. It’s fast, witty, tuneful, and excellently silly. All vital panto moments are here – shoutbacks, a pie, audience members recruited briefly, sly in-jones about costume changes.
I came to it fresh from cheering John Savournin’s fine bass rants as the Pirate King at the Coliseium, scroll below . But here, as every year, he pops up as co-author with Benji Sperring of the Charles Court OPera panto. It should be a nationally recognized event: last year I meanly only gave their Greek romp 3+ a pantomouse for daftness, adding up to 4. This one is still sillier, musically even better, and so damn clever – with its torrent of goofy gags for serious people – that the mice queued up to be included. My only dismay is that it’s in such a small house so not enough right-thinking people will see it. But Penny and Stella and their Jermyn regulars are, after all, the absolute cream of small-scale London theatre. Merry Christmas, Jermyn!
Jermynstreetheatre.co.uk to 5 jan
theatreCat 