Jack and his Giant Stalk – Brick Lane Music Hall, London.

Writer and Director: Lucy Hayes

Once upon a time the Brick Lane Music Hall could be found in Brick Lane, but then in 2003, it relocated. The music hall moved five miles east, to a Grade II listed Victorian church, St. Mark’s, in Silvertown. The church had had a rough time, what with fire destroying the roof and sitting in the midst of slum clearance, but the music hall rescued the building and transformed it into a fantastic treasure chest of nooks and velvet and colour, where they stage variety shows with dining – three-course meals in the evening, afternoon tea during matinees.

The whole day out experience makes it a favourite for coach parties. They come to East London from the Kent coast, they fly in from Boston, they come, on this occasion, to enjoy a pantomime for grown-ups, a bawdy, sea-side postcard style re-jigging of a traditional pantomime, written and directed by Lucy Hayes and featuring the rude repartee of her father Vincent Hayes who founded the music hall in 1992 and received an MBE for services to British Music Hall.

The ambience is exceptionally welcoming, the front-of-house cum wait staff are brilliant and attentive, and make the experience as delightful for their audience as a day-trip to London Docklands can possibly be. And the venue is repaid by rapturous reception for the on-stage entertainment.

Which is sort of okay. The costumes (designed by artistic director Zara Kattan) are splendid, the backdrops are somewhat basic, the acting is on the perfunctory edge of competent, and the stage magic is lacking – chase scenes in slow motion, transformations involving a screen held near the curtains behind which the actors change places. Nothing to shake up an audience’s view of panto fun, with additional rudery.

The rudery is pretty inoffensive. It features lots of Viagra references and men and women getting bottoms slapped and groins tickled, but the transgression is low-key. Toned down Max Miller. Vanilla Miller, if you will, when the pun-tastic script has taken hold. The main source of comedy is the transformation (offstage) of Jack’s bovine chum Daisy into a personable lady singer specialising in Cow-reoke. There are a lot of ABBA covers with cow lyrics. ‘Water-moo’.

It’s an odd entertainment. The venue is gorgeous, the experience is very pleasant, the audience of charabanc-transported seniors have a splendid time, the acting is jolly and surprisingly inoffensive, and there’s nothing to trouble anyone who isn’t an actual child. The venue, costumes and experience earn four stars; the show gets three, so we can split the difference. Three and a half.

Runs until 7 March 2026.