Pantomime
Ricky McWhittington
Tramway/ various venues across Glasgow
Mary Brennan, four stars
Dick Whittington, you’ll remember, hit the road to seek his fortune. Ricky McWhittington – his Glesca’ incarnation – has returned home, still skint... so he’s bundled up his mammy, Senga, some chums (and a rank, mega-ponging Queen Rat) and they’ve all hit the road with a touring panto that is a total stoatir. That old mantra “two planks and a passion” sums up just how resourceful and spot on this production is. Brian Hartley’s nifty set design is a single painted flat that opens out from the Allbuttons sweet-shop to onboard their boat - colourful, attractive and portable. He then goes to town on the costumes, where there are visually clever details at every turn - this might be a low budget affair, but there’s been no scrimping on imagination. Or on the calibre of performances, either.
Steven Rae’s Senga sashays on with a well-judged nod and a wink towards the saucy vulgarity that is a cheery-cheeky hallmark of an Alan McHugh panto script. This garrulous dame is in lust with her employer, the upstanding Marmaduke Allbuttons (Josh Whitelaw), and what fun we all have as Senga turns on the vamp and camp to get her man. Melody Allbuttons would love to tell the mildly gormless Ricky (Sam Willison) how she feels, if only she wasn’t so bashful and tongue-tied. It’s Fairy Gallus Alice to the rescue! Queen Rat (Esme Bayley, a classily malevolent rodent) must be defeated so this breezily gung-ho Fairy (Sarah McCardle) turns Melody into a kung-fu Kitty Cat. Both sides to Melody are engagingly captured by Christina Gordon, who switches from sweetly shy girl to confident, can-do miss in the blink of a costume change. Director Bill Wright’s hour-long version of this panto simply crackles with big-hearted energy – it’s at Platform, Easterhouse from Tues 19 to Sat 23 December.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel