Sleeping Beauty Review: Cast shine in stunning panto performance

This year's Gatehouse theatre panto, Sleeping Beauty, hailed spectacular!

REVIEW BY DAVID BANNER.

This year's panto, Sleeping Beauty, starring Mark Rhodes is being hailed the best in years!

Question: How do you keep pantomimes fresh, year after year?

People want jokes they’ve heard hundreds of times before, songs they’ve known for years and storylines as old as the hills.

Yet they still want to feel the magic like the very first time they saw panto, too. It’s a Christmas conundrum not every theatre can solve, but the Gatehouse has pulled it off. Again.

With a bright new director (Scott LeCrass) at the helm, SLEEPING BEAUTY ticks all the boxes for a perfect family night out. It’s a traditional panto, packed with heroes, villains, spectacular set-pieces and some super surprises, too.

There’s a bucketload of jokes for the kids, the grown-ups and those who refuse to grow up at all (ie. Me) in this laugh-a-minute retelling of a princes who pricks her finger on a spinning wheel and falls into an enchanted sleep.

CBBC legend Mark Rhodes leads the cast as Hilarious Harry and more than lives up to the name with his perfect comic timing, getting everyone onside with a barrage of one-liners the minute he steps on stage. There aren’t many better panto front men in the country and after a performance packed with boundless energy and innate likeability, awards can’t be far away for this loveable local hero.

His comedy partner is David Phipps-Davis, back as Dame Nora Nickerbocker (of course), whose razor sharp ad libs are worth the ticket price alone. And that’s before we get into the dame’s 20 – yes, TWENTY – costume changes and some hilarious outfits.

Samantha Spragg also returns by popular demand, playing the very boo-able baddie Carabosse; full of wicked intent, dark desires and an amazing singing voice. Will she see the error of her ways by the end? What a cliffhanger!

They are all backed up by a top-class professional cast led by panto veteran Ian Billings as King Louis, TikTok star (yes, that IS a thing) Finlay McKillop and Soleil Quarless as Princess Beauty herself. A special mention too for Staffordshire actor Emily Vinnicombe who steals several scenes with her rhyming prose as the perfect Fairy Flutterby.

The ensemble is also on point, with dance captain Sophie Hirst also turning in a more-than-capable turn as Queen Helga.

The superb set, crisp sound and luscious lighting deserves a mention too, lifting this show out of the ordinary with one of the most technically impressive productions of any regional theatre this Christmas.

The script sparkles throughout with references to everything from Monty Python to something called 6/7.

No, I don’t know what that means either, but the kids went wild for it and again, that’s probably the secret of this show’s ‘something-for-everyone’ success.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But the Gatehouse hasn’t stood still, they’ve kept moving toward that fairytale nirvana of panto perfection – and they’re not far off with this belter of a show.

Two years ago, Beauty and the Beast set the standard. Last time out, Jack and the Beanstalk was even better. Sleeping Beauty is not just the best of the three – it’s possibly the best pantomime I’ve ever seen in 30 years of visiting the Gatehouse. Truly unmissable.

Recommendations don’t come much higher than that.

FIVE STARS OUT OF FIVE