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An irrepressible Iain Lauchlan leads a trip to Prickly Bottom, where songs, toilet humour and Joe Wicks gags abound
A good panto is for life, not just for Christmas. It’s two years since I took my daughters Aggie and Hilda to Hackney Empire’s Aladdin and they still sing the irresistible “panda-mime dance” as performed by a chorus line of pandas. This year, we’re trying something different: the Coventry Belgrade theatre’s Jack and the Beanstalk, written by and starring Iain Lauchlan, is one of several filmed pantomimes to be streamed during UK theatres’ winter of discontent. How successfully can the anarchic spirit of panto pandemonium be captured on screen?
Seven-year-old Hilda fidgets next to me as the film opens in a glum, empty theatre with Lauchlan and his regular sidekick Craig Hollingsworth reflecting on the year that was and the cancellation of this year’s festive shows. Pantos can be full-throttle from the start, and their audiences bring on a headache before the show has even begun, so it’s disconcerting to sit in silence watching such a quiet, sombre scene. But wait, the pair suggest, couldn’t a digital production enable them to do all sorts of “whizzy things” and let their imagination run beyond the limits of the theatre?