9/7/2023 0 Comments Time out london reviews![]() ![]() It’s all invitingly knockabout – staged to showcase performances. Director Cal McCrystal doesn’t try to shock and awe us into submission. The show blends bursts of energetic choreography by Lizzi Gee, Prema Mehta’s colourful lighting design and Ben Harrison’s playful sound design into something comfortingly familiar. But baddie Malignia (Karen Mavundukure), however, is cacklingly confident that sudden riches will corrupt the family. Fortuitously, good witch Encanta (Sharon Ballard) sends Anna-Jane Casey’s golden-egg-laying Cilla Quack their way. McKellen’s Mother Goose, her husband Vic (comedian and actor John Bishop) and son Jack (Oscar Conlon-Murray) have hit hard times as they try to keep their Oxford Street shelter for orphaned animals financially afloat. ![]() Harvey makes sure to queer every corner of the show in an applaudable way. But that doesn’t mean it’s socially conservative. Entertainment is key, as Jonathan Harvey’s script lovingly embraces music-hall humour. Get ready for plenty of winks at the audience and some welcome jibes at energy companies and our current pantomime of a government, but not in a sharply meta way. Rejecting the arch knowingness of, for example, the slick blockbuster stylings of the annual Palladium panto, this ‘Mother Goose’ is an unashamedly traditional affair. He does this wearing a pinny, a hand to a bosom of panto proportions and an unruly curly wig perched perilously on his head. Transferring to the Duke of York’s Theatre after a short warm-up in Brighton, this is acting legend and superstar Ian McKellen sending up one of his most famous film roles in his latest stage gig, as he swaps the ‘sir’ for ‘dame’ – Mother Goose. Gandalf murmurs ‘orcs’ as he looks out over the audience and ominous music plays in the background. ![]()
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