Dawn French makes her pantomime debut in a sparkling take on Snow White, and her Queen Dragonella is an engagingly tongue-in-cheek villain. But the focus of this big-budget spectacle is Julian Clary, whose posturing Man in the Mirror appears in a succession of artfully designed and increasingly outrageous outfits as he showers the audience with puns and disdain.
This isn’t family-friendly fare. Clary quotes a review from two years ago that referred to the Palladium panto’s ‘tsunami of smut’, and it’s a description that now seems mild as we’re treated to wave upon wave of innuendo. Asked for tips about where to go on a date, he muses, ‘I’ve always enjoyed being taken up the Shard’, and when thoughts turn to food he coolly mentions the delights of a battered sausage.
More conventional festive mirth comes from Gary Wilmot’s affable Dame, especially when reciting at breakneck speed a list of the stars who’ve performed at this venue. As Prince Harry of Hampstead, Charlie Stemp channels the spirit of the young Michael Crawford, and there are crowd-pleasing interludes from ventriloquist Paul Zerdin and his insolent dummy Sam, though an extended in-joke about the superfluous presence of Nigel Havers wears thin.
Directed and largely written by Michael Harrison, this is in essence a variety show, and the story of Snow White herself (Danielle Hope) is at risk of getting lost amid its extravagant dazzle. Sequences by Vincent and Flavia of Strictly Come Dancing fame are shoehorned in, and the seven dwarves feel almost like an afterthought. But it’s visually ravishing and infectiously funny, with Clary capable of making even a fairly tame line about having a spritzer in the snug at a Soho pub sound like shameless filth.
Until January 13
