Watford Palace theatre – until 2nd January 2022
Reviewed by Alexandra Sykes
4****
Telling the story of the future Lord Mayor of London, Dick Whittington and his Cat is a family friendly panto that will have you laughing from start to finish.
Set in London, the panto tells the story of Dick Whittington (Reece Evans) as he travels to London. On his adventures Dick is joined by a pink tiger named Tum Tum (Louise Cielecki), love interest Alice (Rhiannon Bacchus) and the fabulous Sherrie Trifle (Terence Frisch) as they fight the evil Verminia Yobb (Natasha Lewis) and sidekick Garbage (Grace Lai). With a set made to look like the London underground, a flan factory and the Tum Tum’s home island of Xanadu, and amazing outfits, especially for Sherrie, it is clear to see why this production of Dick Whittington is so popular. The scene that gets the most laughs is the scene in the flan factory where Sherrie is explaining to Dick how the flans are made, with flan cases and custard flying everywhere, as you would expect with a panto.
Featuring catchy songs, including Verminia singing Rappers Delight and Tum Tum singing Xanadu, the story works well and the scenes are linked together with narration by Bellvedere (Thomas Fabian Parrish). The best song however is the Trifle song, which Sherrie gets the audience to sing at the end of the show, which is mainly popular with the younger members of the audience.
With lots of traditional panto aspects such as shouting “it’s behind you” and “oh yes it is/oh no it isn’t”, the innuendos, especially with regards Dick’s name, aren’t as common as they are in other versions of this show, this family friendly panto needs to be viewed by everyone this panto season.