Join us to celebrate the King’s golden pantoversary in swashbuckling style with a brand new title, Peter Pan. Read more …
On board this maiden voyage is star of Gary Tank Commander and Fresh Meat, Greg McHugh, in the role of Smee, Still Game’s Gavin Mitchell is more evil than ever as Captain Hook, and Capital FM presenter Des Clarke makes a hearty return as Starkey. Whether they’re playing a prank or walking the plank, this pirate crew will have you in stitches.
River City favourite Scott Fletcher reaches new heights as Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up, and King’s newcomer Joanne McGuinness stars as Wendy in a production featuring breath-taking special effects and spectacular flying.
With all the traditional family fun and games, dazzling costumes and more than a sprinkle of fairy dust, Peter Pan will have audiences of all ages hooked.
Verdict: The grand old Glaswegian pantomime moves tentatively into the modern age.
As with almost all pantos subtlety has gone out of the window, though not too far in this case; the script gets laughs in all the right places from the audience of all ages and manages to refrain from cheap innuendo to do so, the design is relatively tasteful and naturalistic rather than garish and tacky and the music is a mixed bag of relatively recent hits and familiar old classics.
If the whole show seems more like a first try-out by a brand new team than a solid panto mix of newcomers and established stars, it still ends with a decent traditional song-sheet, an anniversary tribute to King’s stars of the past, and the Glasgow audience on its feet and dancing, as McHugh pronounces the whole evening not only “barry”, but “pure JM Barrie”.
King's Theatre, Glasgow from Saturday December 6, 2014, until Sunday January 11, 2015. More info: www.theambassadors.com/kings/
RSS feed of Theatre reviews