Panto legend Susie McKenna was scheduled to perform an almost unthinkable feat this year and be responsible for not one, but two London pantomimes. She would write this year’s Catford Broadway show, following on from the last two Christmases where she’d both written and directed. And she would write and direct Aladdin & The Magic Lamp, the inaugural panto at the huge new Soho Theatre Walthamstow.
The latter didn’t happen, apparently because Soho Walthamstow wasn’t ready for a theatre show of its scale yet. Which leaves McKenna slightly stranded, unable to direct Dick Whittington and His Catford Cat because the gig had already gone to Peter Rowe.
Which must be doubly galling as the publicity material has made much of the personal nature of the show, it being a Windrush generation-themed affair that’s been billed as tribute to the parents of her wife, the redoubtable actor Sharon D Clarke.
And it’s a neat concept: in a fizzy opening act, we see Durone Stokes’s big-hearted dreamer of a Dick (it’s a funny name, okay) arrive from Jamaica on the iconic passenger vessel. The London he arrives in is… distinctly panto-y (it’s not especially clear what year this is), but some social issues are deftly raised: it’s never quite so gauche as to get bogged down in a big lecture about racism, but there are some tactful but still stinging allusions to the attitudes of the day. It’s a nice way to communicate what the Wishrush generation was to a young audience.
It should also be said that I saw Dick Whittington at a school performance which apparently scaled back some of the Windrush stuff. Which is worth knowing, as my biggest frustration here was that after the first act, Rowe’s somewhat tame production never commits to the bit, and instead goes through the usual Dick Whittington motions (random sea voyage, general rat business).
It remains a good, solid panto, and I think it would stand out from the pack a bit more in its full form (or if McKenna had been able to direct.) I think ultimately, though, the Catford panto is let down by not having performers of the calibre of London’s other major pantos. They’re perfectly decent: Fergie Fraser is enjoyable as Dick’s loopy love interest Alice; Catford panto vet Wayne Rollins gives a nice turn as the grizzled old Cat; in the dame role of Sarah the Cook, Justin Brett has a low key but enjoyably anarchic energy. But in a very strong year for pantomime in London, it needs a bit more oomph from the actors to take it over the top. There is, for instance, almost no audience work, and you wonder if that might not come down to none of these actors having the presence and ease in improvisation to do it.
There’s absolutely no question that it’s the best pantomime in south London, but the stars didn’t align for greatness this year.
