Review: DICK WHITTINGTON, Salisbury Playhouse
Photo credit: The Other Richard
Plested Brown and Wilsher are establishing quite a track record of reimagining and innovating the pantomime titles at Salisbury Playhouse and Corn Exchange Newbury. Audiences are coming to expect something different with the familiar tales and something creative with the limited budgets of these two lovely venues. Their script for Salisbury Playhouse’s production of Dick Whittington certainly takes us on a very different journey from the traditional tale of the country lad told to turn back by the Bow Bells to become Lord Mayor of London. They have taken the traditional characters and spun them into a fantasy world, a sort of a cross between a viral social media meme and a computer adventure game where anything is possible. The result will certainly appeal to the millennials in the audiences whose daily lives are guided by those media.
Thankfully, they do focus the storytelling on the principal boy, Richard, or Dick to his friends, and the principal girl, Alice, an aspiring actress and retain the key adversary in King Percy Rat so we have a battle of good versus evil, and aspiration over greed. All pantomime should have these essential messages for young audiences, as well as put on an uplifting fun show to entertain them and tempt them back for other shows. Venues like Salisbury Playhouse need this double effect to underpin their very existence and this production will surely have that effect.
The adventure is a strange hotchpotch of ideas that don’t always gel together but the energy, intent and exuberant cast carry it off to good effect. A Fairy Bowbells (Natalie Winsor) from the sixties gives a chance to recall snatches of great music of that era and her bold and brash portrayal promoting love and kindness is great fun. Dick Whittington (Will Carey) is a podcaster with just one follower, his Northern cat Cosmo (Lindo Shinda), determined to put Salisbury on the map. He leaves his Mum, Sarah the Cook (David Rumele) temporarily when he walks from Salisbury to London via Stratford upon Avon and Scotland so he can sing ‘500 Miles’. Alice (Olivia Hewitt-Jones) is the aspiring actress whose Dad (Hugh Osborne) runs badly a London café. When the Isle of Wight ferry sinks, they are washed up in a California film studio, which does require the audience to suspend the disbelief as they are not even in the same ocean, but it is pantomime so why not?! Of course, just one audition song recorded by Dick gets her the starring role in a film! When we get to the traditional pantomime ghost scene, we are presented with a nod to the movie world when the ghost is a six-foot inflatable shark who totters around the stage in the usual business.
Occasionally the leaps in logic are so great that you wander about the creative process. Do they return from California to London on a spaceship because they had six inflatable spacemen and alien costumes, or because they wanted to use the Eurovision hit ‘Spaceman’ or because they wanted a topical reference to Elon Musk’s Starship project? It doesn’t really matter; it is another madcap fantasy sequence executed with wit that adds topicality. The star of the show is Will Jennings as King Percy Rat who dominates each scene from his first appearance out of a stage trap with his posh accent, bags of personality and engaging physicality. He is Mayor of London and delivers his topical gags about Rishi, Matt Hancock, Philip Schofield, Oppenheimer, gas bills, and Liz Truss with great charm and generates plenty of amused boos.
This bonkers plotting is enhanced by some excellent music choices. As well as the Sixties hits such as ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’,’Surfin’ USA’ and ‘Saturday Night at the Movies’, we have a clever parody with the junior ensemble of ‘ Revolting Rodents (Children)’, the Rocky Horror hit ‘Time Warp’, a rewritten version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s ‘The Modern Major General’, as well as Elton John’s ‘I’m Still Standing’ and hit song ‘It’s Raining Men”’ This eclectic mix of tunes - all played with great vigour by the band - have a wide appeal across the generations and provide plenty of enjoyable moments.
The Wiltshire Creative workshops have created some colourful and practical sets, designed by Zoe Squire, with a magnificent false proscenium arch and front cloth to set the scene and simple units to represent the shops although in half light, the IOW ferry set looks a little like a laundrette! The colours and costumes transport you into this surreal fantasy world, the energy and efforts of the young cast carry you through the leaps of logic, and the music and jokes bring a smile to the audiences’ faces.
This reimagining of the traditional rags to riches story of Richard Whittington may not be perfect but it is a fun, entertaining treat for the Wiltshire community and as they suggest should inspire the “theatregoers of the future” to return to support this smashing venue.
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Nick Wayne
Dick Whittington plays at Salisbury Playhouse until 7 January 2024, with further information here.