So how many seafaring terms can you mop up in one scene? Quite a lot it seems if you’re Al Morley & Matt Crosby – the writing team behind Cambridge Arts Theatre’s panto. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves, the mops and the ship’s mates come in the second act of Dick Whittington and his cat. The first act sets the scene, and the usual high standards, for our city’s annual helping of traditional panto, political jibes and local in-jokes.
Paul Nicholas makes a startlingly scary King Rat – enough to send the young lady sitting next to me into her mum’s lap – but if you were around in the 1980s, you might simply be taken aback by the incongruity given his TV role in Just Good Friends. He sings his socks off with a great reworking of Meatloaf’s Bat Outta Hell, as you’d expect from someone with four top ten hits to his name. He’s matched note for note by Dawn Hope as Fairy Bowbells, whose CV includes numerous musicals and cast albums.
With Morley and Crosby once again scripting the show, there is of course the obligatory slapstick scene. This time set in the moving ship’s galley, with Sarah (Crosby) and Idle Jack (Robert Rees), fish, the shipping forecast and plenty of slip-sliding around. And naturally, there’s oodles of audience participation, from the traditional ‘behind you’ to the more up-to-date exhortation from Idle Jack to greet his ‘uh, uh, oh’ with ‘yeah, yeah, yeah’. Just as we’ve come to expect, the script is bursting with kid-friendly gags and adult-amusing puns, double entendre and political jibes. Expect Brexit, Marmite, the Fens and Donald Trump to pop up, but given Dick and Tom’s (cat played brilliantly by Daniel Cummins) presence on stage, I couldn’t help but wonder where Harry was (sorry, couldn’t resist!).
The original story of Dick (Holly Easterbrook) becoming Lord Mayor and marrying Alice (Rhiannon Porter) is adhered to, along with the usual format of dance numbers and panto babes, but this is the traditional interwoven with the modern – rather like our city. From Whatsapp to Viber, this panto is sending a message of good vanquishing evil and Christmas joy.
Dick Whittington and his Cat is at the Cambridge Arts Theatre until 8 January. Tickets start at £16.50.
