Empire Theatre, Eden Court, Inverness, until 9 January 2011

TO MY DISMAY, my announcement to a group of my peers that I was going to see the Pantomime this year was met with indifferent mutterings of “Oh, but it doesn’t even have anyone famous in it.”

I’m sure that if they’d accompanied me, they would have had to agreed that a charming cast, perfect storybook sets and a just-the-right-side-of-cheesy score is a whole lot more important than the inclusion of a vaguely familiar soap actor. Because Beauty and the Beast was, in short, utterly fantastic.

Eden Court's Beauty and the Beast

This is Imagine Theatre’s second production for Eden Court, with Ian Lauchlan returning to write, direct and star, as a magnificent Dame. Her costumes alone deserve a mention. Rather than just sticking her in the usual formula of garish dress, bloomers and pair of falsies, our Dame Dorothy Do-It instead sported massive recreations of various household cleaning products. The Fairy Liquid bottle ensemble, complete with squirty lid hat, was my particular favourite.

It must be said that some of the humour must have been lost on anyone who doesn’t live locally – the script is peppered with references to ‘Love2Love’ and ‘Johnny Fox’s’, along with the requisite Dingwall put-downs. Nevertheless, I think even a non-English speaker would have found themselves in hysterics over the slapstick capers and tomfoolery happening onstage.

Oh, and the re-working of Scouting For Girl’s She’s So Lovely into I’m So Lovely, as sung by wanna-be Casanova, Eugene? Pure genius, and a definite improvement on the original, if you ask me. The fact that my theatre companion has been humming it all day since makes me wonder if it might be a good idea for Imagine Theatre to release soundtracks post-performance.

Beauty and the Beast

Something that really astounded me were the effects. In a pantomime, I think it would be quite easy to settle for a few painted backdrops and a spotlight. However, for the stage crew, more evidently was more, and the audience was treated to fantastic images of epic proportions.

The glow in the dark, flying skeleton boogie-woogie number was, as far as I could see, completely irrelevant to the story, but gosh, it was dead entertaining (pardon the pun).

Although we were sat amidst a crowd that mostly consisted of 5 to 10 year olds, I would whole-heartedly urge anyone, regardless of age, to go see the show. After all, with a show of this scale, talent and enthusiasm, and a script that can potentially appeal to any level of maturity, who could possibly be disappointed?

© Rowan Macfie, 2010

Links

• Eden Court Theatre