New Victoria Theatre, Woking – until 2 January 2022
Reviewed by Joanna Huggett.
5*****
My 10 year-old daughter Amelia and I went to see the panto, and we both really enjoyed it. We thought the set and costumes were colorful. The cast were very good at involving the audience, and the audience were very interactive in return. We found the show very funny and it had a real ‘feel good’ factor about it.
We enjoyed the music, and the pop songs sung by the cast. We particularly enjoyed ‘Dynamite’ sung by Prince Harry, played by Benjamin Purkiss. We also loved ‘You raise me up’ sung by the seven dwarfs. The dwarfs were played by Joe Thompson-Oubari, Matthew Chase, Jordan Dutton, Matt Faull, Thomas Kalek, Matthew Maddison, and Charlie Waddell.
In terms of performances, our favourite characters were Muddles, played by Aaron James, and the Man in the Mirror, played by Gok Wan. We enjoyed the jokes told by Aaron James, and thought he was very clever at remembering them all! And we thought his comic timing was excellent. We also loved seeing Gok Wan and found him very genuine with the audience and other actors alike. We enjoyed the performances of Queen Lucretia, played by Harriet Thorpe, and Snow White, played by Rebekah Lowings.
We liked the flying pterodactyl at the end of Act One. We also enjoyed the performance of the 12 days of Christmas in Act two, and the finale wedding scene. We thought the choreography of the ensemble was excellent throughout.