Wycombe Swan, High Wycombe – until Sunday 4th January 2026
Reviewed by Rachel Clark
3***
A panto for all the family – an Impressive Giant!
Jack and the Beanstalk was brought to Wycombe Swan by Imagine Theatre they have produced more than 260 professional pantomime’s and multiple children theatre shows.
This panto I attended as a family with my grandchildren ages 7 and 4 so saw it through the children’s eyes as well as my own.
This is great the older one said in the first half, the younger one not so sold and it didn’t fully catch his attention, I think the issue was the first half wasn’t too strongly Jack and the Beanstalk orientated, it was Scott Mills talking about Radio two – which my grandchildren don’t listen to and jokes by La Voix on her Strictly Come Dancing issues with Shirley giving her a 2.
Major Mills played by Scott Mills wasn’t that stronger character, there wasn’t the boom to the character, and the part could have been played by anyone. Mark Read a singer-songwriter who was in the boyband A1 played Jack and was well polished in the part and had a good voice and they there was his brother Larry Trott played by Matt Edwards who brought the show to life! Every time he came on stage and shouted Hiya Kids he got the loud response Hiya Larry. He was fun the children loved him and his facial expressions were brilliant, he really played the part, a shout out to Matt. Matt Edwards did a few magic tricks and was in Britain’s Got Talent and got a golden buzzer and seeing him at the panto I am not surprised.
A panto can’t be a panto without a baddie played by jo Osmond as Poisoned Ivy, she was big on character and the children really liked her and I often heard them giggling. Jo has played in the panto for 14 years and it showed she was really into the part.
Dame Trott was played by LaVoix along with all her colourful outfits and managed to do the show wearing a boot for her recent injury that pulled her out of Strictly Come Dancing.
The second half was a lot better, more the Jack and the Beanstalk story and the children enjoyed it more, we had bugs – that looked like cockroaches the costumes for these were brilliant, spiders it was more vibrant and fun and not forgetting the Giant and my grandchildren exclaiming – ho do they do that, he is so big, is ait remote control or what? I couldn’t ask as I couldn’t work out how they managed it, but it was impressive!
The finale was vibrant, loud, fun – I personally would have like to have seen that more from the start. The set had all the sparkle but took it a while to shine through the rest of the show.