There aren’t many pantos that include a guest appearance by the local mayor, but it’s a sign of how much Tara, the cross-cultural company founded almost 40 years ago, is valued within Wandsworth that councillor Richard Field does indeed make a cameo.
He probably shouldn’t give up the day job, but his appearance plays to the strengths of what is a very local affair. When Dame Moowallah loses her job at St Georges hospital because of budget cuts, she and her Bollywood-obsessed son Zak have to take their beloved holy cow, Moomoo, who is also a yoga devotee, to Tooting market.
There are lots of local references (another mayor, Sadiq Khan, was born on an estate just up the road), and the idea to combine that very British staple, pantomime, with India’s Bollywood tradition is a good one.
It’s also lovely to see that increasing rarity, a principal boy played by a girl: Sohm Kapila’s Zak, who falls for BT broadband engineer Zeta, comes complete with thigh-length boots and a pencilled-on moustache.
But the whole thing is a bit half-baked. The rhyming couplets in Farrukh Dhondy’s script are often laboured rather than witty, and Jatinder Verma’s production lacks verve and invention. Not all the cast can sing, which you would have thought was a basic requirement. But whether heroes or villains, they are all amiable, interact well with the audience and ham it up even as the returns are diminishing fast.
- At Tara theatre, until 7 January. Box office: 020-8333 4457.
