A sunny spring day in Tunbridge Wells is not the setting that would normally be associated with a pantomime production but, then again, The Little Mermaid is no ordinary pantomime. It has all the ingredients of a traditional panto, singing, dancing, colourful sets and great costumes but the thing that makes it so different is the supremely funny script – not a groan-a-minute attempt at being funny, but a truly laugh-out-loud-from-start- to-finish triumph.
Tunbridge Wells based Wicked Productions are the company that have taken the bold decision to move panto away from the festive season, and judging by the huge crowds at The Assembly Hall Theatre this Easter, it’s a decision that has paid off handsomely.
From the moment that the house lights dim, and a large video screen at the back of the stage lights up, the children (and adults) in the audience are drawn into the tale of the mermaid who longs to be human. The little mermaid’s father, and ruler of the undersea world, King Triton (Rob Cummings) opens proceedings with a dramatic entrance and a speech, in rhyming couplets.
As the sea witch Morgana, Jimmy Burton-Iles is perfectly cast. He wastes no time in getting the entire audience to “boo” and “hiss” as loud as they can and, from the tip of the oversized wig, past her tentacles and all the way down to the floor, Morgana is every inch the perfect panto baddie. Assisted by Neil the Electric Eel (played with tons of attitude and bucketloads of “street savvy” by Amanda Swift), they set about trying to steal the underwater kingdom away from King Triton by using his youngest daughter.
For every panto baddie there has to be a goodie and, as you might guess, in this show that job is taken by Georgia Rowland Elliott as Triton’s youngest daughter, the little mermaid who, for copyright reasons, is not known as Ariel, but as Lenore! Determined to live a life that offers so much more than eternity on the sea bed, she’s something of a rebel – but a rebel that the audience take to their hearts from the outset.
King Triton, together with the two female and two male dancers who double as stagehands, all work very hard to to keep the story moving along but, at the end of the day (and this is the key to why this Easter pantomime works so brilliantly well) they are mainly here to act as stooges for the comedy double-act that seek every opportunity to mess around, go off-script, corpse the rest of the cast and generally bring supposed anarchy to the production!
As Lenore’s friends and guardians, Crab Stick and Crab Paste, Tom Swift and Ant Payne are just magnificent. Their humour suits everyone from three to 103 with jokes pitched at every level, including a few that had the adults in the audience looking at each other in disbelief and thinking, “Did they really just say THAT in a family show! Of course, the younger members of the audience are totally oblivious to the “Carry On” style comedy and they go much more for the lavatorial humour and physical comedy – of which there is plenty.
David Young, as the dashingly handsome Prince Edward, together with the dancers Jessica Pease, Sophie-Jo Lusted, Danny Becker and (making his professional theatre debut) Robbie Culley add good looks and youthful energy to the production with some seriously punchy dance numbers, choreographed by Claire Cassidy, and powerful vocals as well.
It would, of course, be unfair of me to give away the elements of this production that make it’s staging totally unique, you will have to go and see the show to find out what they are, but, what I can say is this – If you want to laugh out loud watching a team of consumate professionals presenting one of the finest, funniest, pantomime style productions ever to hit the stage – The Little Mermaid is a sure-fire winner!
***** Five Stars
