“Dick Whittington” Pantomime 2021 - Squire Performing Arts Centre, Nottingham
“Dick Whittington”
Take a trip to London town with their magical family pantomime! Will Dick defeat the evil King Rat, and save both his friends and a mysterious foreign land? Find out with the perfect kickstart to your festive season!
Starring Nottingham favourites, Adam Guest, Shona Stewart, Jack Readyhoof, Ben Bradley, Kheenan Jones, Lucy Gazzard, Millie and Andrew Bould, and introducing a fabulous ensemble!
Dick Whittington features all the traditional elements! A dazzling Dame, lavish costumes, stunning sets and a terrifying villain, we’re sure you won’t want to miss this adventure! Brought to you by BSC Theatricals BSC Theatricals in partnership with Encore Edge. Dick Whittington is written and directed by Ben Bradley, with additional material by Adam Guest and the original cast.
The doors opened as usual, and people took their seats, although the show started 15 minutes later than advertised, which we didn’t think annoyed people too much but it made them a little agitated, although as soon as the show started, people weren’t really fussed.
The running times were a little longer than expected, what was originally meant to be 2 hours and 20 minutes ended up lasting 2 hours and 50 minutes.
There is no room to complain, the show went on brilliantly, but we would have preferred the advertised running times to be a bit more realistic and accurate.
This timing confusion was probably due to the fact that they were so engrossed with the comical factor that they started dragging on the performance longer than anticipated, and I think the only thing that spoiled it was another actor had come onto the stage to tell the cast to hurry up and finish.
Some of the characters made a few mistakes here and there such as forgetting lines or messing up choreography, but they adapted it and made it apart of their character which takes incredible skill, it was very impressive and gave the audience a good laugh! There was a good use of theatrical conventions such as melodrama and choral speech and of course, a lot of irony.
There are a few classic, well known songs used in the show, that had audience members singing along and dancing. These songs included: “Don’t worry be happy”, " Best Day of our life” also, the final song “Marry You” by Bruno Mars all of which brought great joy to the audience.
During their production show, they were raising money for ‘Nottingham Hospitals Charity’. They had some bucket collection out the foyer for the audience if they wish to make a donation which we think its so good to see that people are supporting charities with their good cause.
Personally, we found that Dick’s character was too bland, and the comedy mainly came from the other cast such as Jack, Sarah and others. Although Dick was played by an amazing actor and their singing voice was exquisite, we think that they could’ve developed their character more to fit the melodrama of the other characters as well.
Ben Bradley (King Rat) is deliciously evil, clad in black and looking a bit like Disney's Malevolent. Ben also has a corker of a voice on him.
The jokes were topical, including a Boris Johnson section which pleased the audience greatly. There were some fresh comedy and adults comedy jokes sections which worked really well.
Also, with the section where children / adults were invited up on stage to join in with a song, which is a great example of the audience repour that was present throughout the panto.
There were some great sets added, adding plenty of colour to the already colourful costumes in the show.
The lighting and sounding were amazing system and it was clear and they put a lot of effort into it.
One of the down sides to this panto was that they were too engrossed in the comical factor of the performance, they forgot to represent to story line well enough, so some people were a bit confused with what was going on.
Overall, this panto was a huge success! It brought a lot of laughter to us and the rest of the audience.
All together, we would rate this panto a 4 stars, but there is definitely room for improvement.
But well done to all of the cast and crew for putting on a fabulous show!!
“Dick Whittington Pantomime” is at the Squire Performing Arts Centre, Nottingham until Saturday 27th November 2021.
Written by Owen Brindley and Noa Hart
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