Leeds City Varieties Theatre – until 7 January 2024
Reviewed by Sal E Marino
5*****
Another year and another outstanding Rock ‘n’ Roll panto is now on at the wonderful Leeds City Varieties, all through the Christmas season and into the New Year. As always, I loved it as the highly multi-talented cast are brilliant actors, dancers and musicians and just like every year, every line and move was delivered with high-energy and all of the songs were phenomenal!
Robin Hood (Samuel Pope) (and the Babes in the Wood, Hannah Baker and Louisa Beadel) is this year’s tale and where we find ourselves in Sherwood Forest with the evil Sheriff of Nottingham (Kenny Davies) terrorising all the locals. Luckily, Robin has Marian (Lucy Keirl) on his side, who with her quick wit and brains, helps saves the day. Caught up in the mix and employed to look after ‘The Babes’ is Nellie Night Nurse (Simon Nock) and I say it every year, but I’d love to go and see Nock do his own stand-up show as he makes me laugh-out-loud with every quip, expression and innuendo. I think the gold bodysuit stole the show this year!
The Sheriff was a great baddie and an amazing guitar player, I loved Kenny’s solo rock riff, wow! Norbert Numbskull Nobrains (Guy Freeman) stole all our hearts as the lovable fool with lots of slapstick comedy alongside his sidekick Portcullis. This year, the singing was even better (which is hard to beat!) and I was quite blown away by the quality of the voices – ‘I would do anything for love’ was perfect!
I can’t recommend this pantomime enough, your whole family or group of pals on a night out will just love it! There was everything everyone of any age wants: big belly laughs, songs we all know and can sing-along-to and even a water fight! A guaranteed great night out!