The results of the great annual east-west London panto-off are in and this year the trophy — glittery and covered in fearsomely flammable fabric — heads to Hackney. Each Christmas the Lyric Hammersmith and the Hackney Empire compete to produce the best home-grown panto and they should be commended for this noble undertaking, rather than shipping in lots of famous faces from the telly and hiking their prices to match.
The Lyric this year celebrates ten years on the panto frontline, but Hackney trumps that with 20 years of festive family fare from writer/director Susie McKenna and her loyal team of collaborators, not least composer Steven Edis. A key component of McKenna’s long-running success has been due to these strong creative partnerships and her dependence on a core team of well-drilled performers.
Two of the most illustrious return now to Ha-Ka-Ney, that well-known outpost of old Peking: undisputed panto grande dame Clive Rowe and Tameka Empson, best known as Kim Fox-Hubbard in Eastenders.
However — and let the boos start ringing out at that measly qualifier — Hackney has, in years past, been stronger than this. Aladdin doesn’t quite have the wild anarco-energy that is vital for panto success and it’s also lumpy in parts. One hour each way is the ideal running time; the first half here is a punishing one hour 20 and the family of six seated next to me didn’t return after the interval.
Rowe is a microcosm of this overall trend: he’s very good, but has been even better. Parts of his performance as Widow Twankey seem under-powered and I couldn’t help but wonder if everything had been sharper on press night. I went two nights after this, when perhaps the long slog of the demanding schedule had started to kick in.
Enough grousing. Lotte Collett’s design makes everything look lovely, not least a pantomime elephant and Twankey’s headgear. She starts with a hat that features a laundry basket and washing line and ends with one that is a chopstick bowl of exuberant seafood cocktail and a shrimp almost hanging in her ears. McKenna’s script is craftily furious about Brexit; “Give me another chance,” pleads one character, only to be told “You’ve had more chances than Michael Gove.” Musical theatre actress Gemma Sutton makes a thigh-slapping Aladdin and Tony Timberlake is a deliciously malevolent Abanazar, who also goes by the alias Jacob Peas Bogg. Long may the capital’s panto battle continue.
Until Jan 6
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