Palladium Pantomime – Peter Pan

Christmas has been a bit extended for me this year, as it’s only just come to an end this past week with my trip to see the famous Palladium Pantomime for the first time, complete with a touch tour and audio description. And it ensured that I ended the festive season in style, because it was an amazing, hilarious, musical, magical experience.

The annual panto at the Palladium has achieved legendary status since it returned in 2016, after a long spell of 30 years without such a production at the venue, and it attracts huge crowds with its big names. Comedian Julian Clary, ventriloquist Paul Zerdin and acting veteran Nigel Havers have played leading roles in all of them, with actor Gary Wilmot joining the cast from the second year in 2017 onwards, while other celebrities over the years have included Paul O’Grady, Amanda Holden, Lee Mead, Elaine Paige, Dawn French, Beverley Knight, Ashley Banjo with Diversity, Donny Osmond, Alexandra Burke and more.

So it actually started in the same Christmas that I moved to the city, which meant I wasn’t aware of it then, and didn’t really pay it much attention for the first few years, as I was busy with other things. Then the pandemic didn’t help of course. But since then I’ve made an effort to try and see it, by booking early to get good seats at their audio described performances. Last year I had to stay at home though, because I got Covid, which was frustrating. And this week it looked like I would miss it again because of the Tube strikes, but thankfully they were called off at the last minute! So I did get to go this year, and it was well worth the wait.

I wasn’t the only visually impaired person in attendance either, there were a lot of us – which is important, because it proves to the Palladium how popular audio described shows are, as was also clear for The Wizard Of Oz in the summer. Many had come as a group with Eye Matter, a charity run by Suzie Simons, where visually impaired people can get together for outings and regular zoom activities. I met Suzie when I went to the Frameless exhibition last August, she’s very nice. But there were others, like me, who had come along independently as well.

The evening began with a touch tour, where we had the privilege of going on to the enormous stage, which had a brightly coloured floor and large decorative arches that framed the action during the show. And across the stage was a very long table filled with all sorts of beautiful props, some decorated with shimmering glitter, that we could handle (gently of course) to our heart’s content. These included a big Peter Pan book, a toy doll of Sam (the puppet used by Paul Zerdin), lots of sea creatures for the lagoon scene, an alarm clock, a big furry dog head with a floppy tongue worn by one of the actors, and a tiny costume used when Paul and Nigel are shrunk to miniature versions of themselves.

Nearby, on the stage floor, there were also a couple of baby (yet still very large) crocodiles, and a stunning costume with a big cannon sticking out of the chest that Julian wears (one of many costume changes he has in the show, all outrageous in their own way!). The amount of thought, work and detail that has gone into the design and construction of the set, props and costumes is really impressive, and I expect they have a lot of fun putting it all together every year.

It was really thrilling, and in particular very useful indeed, to get close-up to so much of that stuff. And despite our group being so big, there was plenty of room and time for each of us to see everything, it was very well organised. It also really helped to ensure we could follow what was going on in conjunction with the audio description during the show, delivered expertly for VocalEyes by Tony McBride and Ruth James via our headsets. Mind you, how our describers held it together during the show without laughing I really don’t know, although I could tell they were having to contain themselves once or twice! Because it is a riotously funny, crazy, incredible spectacle.

Julian Clary – whose character was appropriately named Seaman Smee – led the proceedings, wearing a different elaborate outfit every time he appeared, including the cannon one mentioned above, a pirate, a sailor, large clam shells, and more. He came out with lots of funny gags and innuendos of course, but he also paid a beautiful and moving tribute to the late Paul O’Grady with a song, and went for a flight high above the audience to the roof of the auditorium at the end of the first half, which was very cool.

Jennifer Saunders was the big guest star this time around, appearing in her first panto as the evil Captain Hook, while Paul Zerdin (playing Starkey) did a few routines and jokes with his puppet Sam, Gary Wilmot played Mrs Henrietta Hook (Captain Hook’s mother), Nigel Havers was simply Pirate Nigel (and was regularly teased about his age), Louis Gaunt was Peter Pan and Rob Madge was Fairy Tink. Wendy would normally have been played by Frances Mayli McCann, but at the end of the show Julian revealed that the woman was actually an understudy standing in at short notice. So I can’t credit her, but she was great.

So all the cast were brilliant. They were clearly having a lot of fun with it and weren’t taking it too seriously, although that does rather belie the amount of hard work and rehearsals that have clearly gone into it to make it look that effortless.

Ultimately it was an epic variety show, consisting of a very loose retelling of the Peter Pan story by J. M. Barrie, mixed with huge musical numbers, elaborate choreography, impressive stunts and comedy routines, a lot of which had no bearing whatsoever on what little plot there was. And it was all the more fun because of that. For example, Julian, Paul, Gary and Nigel came together in the second half to perform the children’s song A Sailor Went To Sea, using lots of props, which included Nigel being hit by a plank of wood and a firework in every verse, which was very funny. And there was a superb routine by a set of acrobats from Kenya called The Timbuktu Tumblers, who jumped through rings, created human towers by balancing on one another, and limboed under a pole that was on fire.

There was plenty of audience interaction too of course, and not the predictable “Oh no it isn’t” and “It’s behind you” stuff either, although there was naturally plenty of booing and hissing for Captain Hook and cheers for the heroes. Julian Clary also spent a few moments in the first half talking to a few people in the front row, while in the second half Paul Zerdin got some kids on stage to try and sing the tongue twister “One smart feller, he felt smart”, to which they had clearly been primed to give some very amusing responses.

All in all, therefore, it was a glorious, uproarious, musical, colourful, uplifting spectacle, made fully accessible thanks to the amazing staff at the Palladium and VocalEyes, and I can see why it’s become such a popular tradition. So I’ll definitely try and get to their future pantos. Oh yes I will!