O*May the day come to a panto where the story is as much (OK, only half) as the girl’s face, and where the romance between the main boy and his crush isn’t as flat as a sack. Dick Hackney Whittington is not panto. No way, this is one known Clive Rowe, this famous London mother known already conceives and controls.
Rowe is the king/queen of all that he explores here, dominating London’s raging rampage, a ship on the high seas and then, for no apparent reason, a deserted island populated by cash-strapped beatniks. (You expect pop songs in a panto; a happy-go-lucky Beatles album track King of the Sun, not so much.)
All of this is enough to keep this panto ship afloat, despite Graham MacDuff’s greatest efforts as ZZ Top King Rat to sink our men five feet deep in Act Two. There is a lively crowd when Rowe tortures the poor father in the stalls. They’re pert-heavy, like the slapstick number that finds his mistress Sarah Cook repeatedly removing the pants of a fellow sailor. Those frogs (costumes by Cleo Pettitt) don’t disappoint, with Rowe appearing variously in a cash register, a pepper shaker (“I’ve got it on Grindr”) and a more linear yacht, the cabin shining brightly, as do Rowe’s eyes throughout.
It’s fun for kids. My middle one was strong for the strong, my youngest was afraid of the mice, the oldest boasted that he would be the first to work the doors. You’d wish, but in vain, for other shows that wring the bed out of Rowe. Plucky and wholesome hero Kandaka Moore may be, but to say that Dick and Alice’s romance is telephoned is an insult to telecommunications. Another Hackney stalwart, Kat B, has a bit of fun as Dick’s magical moggie, and there’s no doubt that the happy spirits will meet as the show – easily restored by pest control – dissolves into song and dance at the end. The pants go, the gold is not covered, but sometimes it glitters.