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Goldilocks and the Three Bears review — a ridiculous amount of fun
THE TIMES - DOMINIC MAXWELL
“Clary is sensational. Resplendent in artfully garish outfits, merciless with audience members and co-stars alike, speak-singing his way through The Lion Sleeps Tonight, he keeps finding new stooges for his one-track-minded mockery. He is thrillingly funny.”
★★★★☆
It almost makes you feel sorry for all the other pantomimes. Where else, after all, can you find this much laughter, this much spectacle . . . this much smut?
Mind you, it calls itself a panto, and with its cross-dressing Gary Wilmot, its Germanically evil Paul O’Grady, its youngish lovers — one of them, after all, is Matt Baker, 41, from The One Show — it tells just enough of a warped fairytale to qualify as one.
What it really is, though, is Britain’s greatest variety show. The eating of bears’ porridge and breaking of bears’ chairs is over in moments. And in case even that much fealty to tradition risks yawns, don’t worry, the humans concerned are singing Hot Stuff by Donna Summer at the time. Apart from that, the story — “such as it is . . .” Julian Clary coos as Ringo the Ringmaster — concerns the nasty circus owner Baron von Savage (O’Grady) trying to take over the nice circus run by Dame Betty Barnum (Wilmot).
This means that the show’s director and deviser, Michael Harrison, gives himself permission to bung in some great routines. We get, in ascending order of wow factor: a nifty magician, an athletic pair of skaters and a team of motorbike riders defying death inside their Globe of Speed.
Clary is sensational. Resplendent in artfully garish outfits, merciless with audience members and co-stars alike, speak-singing his way through The Lion Sleeps Tonight, he keeps finding new stooges for his one-track-minded mockery. He is thrillingly funny. In any other show, the virtuoso ventriloquist Paul Zerdin might be the standout delight. And so would Wilmot with his astounding memory-man song in which he weaves dozens of musical theatre classics into one. Baker is a game presence as Joey the Clown, while Sophie Isaacs plays it almost straight as Goldilocks. Good job someone does.
Yes, this is one for the adults more than it’s likely to enchant the younger ones, even if the lewder jokes pass over their heads. And while O’Grady’s laconic disdain is far livelier than it was here in 2016, his big scene with Clary is a slight letdown, partly because Clary seems to be holding himself in check.
No matter. The blokes from the cast make something magical from set pieces packed with verbal and visual gags. Karen Bruce’s choreography and Ian Westbrook’s sets ensure that it looks great. That it has taken until now to mention that Palladium panto regular Nigel Havers is back and is adorable as Daddy Bear shows what a ridiculous amount of fun this show has to offer.