Jack and the Beanstalk – Cast, Doncaster

Writer: Neil Hurst

Director: Tess Seddon

Let’s start with a mystery. Ben Eagle (Dame Dotty Trott), writing in the programme, mentions “the joy of playing the dame” which is picking on men who are avoiding eye contact as the objects of his flirtatious attention. Fair enough, you might say, but this year’s Jack and the Beanstalk is the only pantomime within living memory in which no audience member is singled out by the Dame!

No matter. Plenty of traditional features are here: tongue-twisting marathons, gags that stray vaguely in the direction of the elbow, a delightful episode where four highly unpredictable kids make nonsense of Old Macdonald’s Farm, extremely messy (if rather short) slop scene and – best of all – Daisy the dancing cow.

Neil Hurst gives the tale rather more of a backstory than usual. The giant (Adam Martyn in mighty unseen voice) is terrorising the villagers of Donnydale via the agency of the Countess Fleshcreep and it is her imposition of a Giant Tax that sends Jack to market with Daisy. She then waylays him and buys the cow for beans. His girlfriend Jill is captured and taken to the Giant’s castle – and thereafter it proceeds pretty much as normal, except that Jill proves a feisty fighter, rather feistier than Jack. The goose that lays a golden egg also puts in an appearance!

Ben Eagle is a seasoned dame, wearing his frocks easily even when clad in a Heinz baked beans can, establishing complicity with the audience (even without a chosen victim) and establishing a neat relationship with Harry Gascoigne as Jack’s silly brother Billy. Gascoigne is at his best in partnership with Eagle, keeping pace with him in the puns and tongue-twisters and moving with uninhibited oddity.

Robyn McIntyre brings the whole range of manic baddie laughter to Countess Fleshcreep and certainly earns her boos. It’s almost a relief to hear her lower the decibels in her disguised roles which she carries off splendidly. Misha Malcolm is a likeable Mother Nature, Fleshcreep’s opponent, without making a great individual impact, and the same might be said of Joe Parker’s rather stiff Jack. Becca Lee-Isaacs (Jill) proves a much more animated and vivacious companion.

The strength of the production is the teamwork Tess Seddon creates between principals, three senior ensemble members and three teams of six in the junior ensemble. The song and dance numbers such as Walking on Sunshine have plenty of energy to go with the smart dance moves (Jasmine Gardner is the choreographer) – and how about the juniors tap dancing in unison?

Runs until 5th January 2025