Writer: Chris Hannon
Director: Matt Aston
The Christmas pantomime at Wakefield has a deservedly high reputation, but this year’s Jack and the Beanstalk is surely the best yet. Partly this is due to the familiarity of many of the key figures, from writer/dame Chris Hannon (15 years) onwards. In addition to Hannon, Chris Chilton and Sam Nixon are naturally funny men and there is the usual team to back them up. Director Matt Aston’s free-wheeling approach does nothing to cramp their style while keeping the ensemble tight and never letting the pace drop. Mark Walters (set designer) and Louise Denison (choreographer) complete a formidable team, along with Jim Lunt’s inspired and witty musical direction.
However, the success owes at least as much to the inventive twist that Hannon gives to the whole story. In place of a good fairy there is Gladys Greenfinger who manages the whole thing, including buying Buttercup the cow and giving Jack the magic bean. Jack, meanwhile, and sister Jill have a problem with their mother, Tracey Trott. Having given birth to a boy who likes cooking and a girl who likes fighting, she insists on forcing them into their gender stereotypes. The result: equal disaster in the kitchen and on the farm.
Enter a most unlikely villain, Colin from the Council who wants to demolish the Trotts’ cottage to build a multi-storey car park, the ultimate aim being that Wakefield should become one huge car park servicing Leeds. But where’s the Giant in all this? Colin has entered an unholy alliance with him by which the Giant will work as a demolition crew. So it’s off up the beanstalk, Jill, of course, the first and bravest.
The wonder of all this is that it promotes worthy attitudes for the children without disturbing the sense of fun and mischief radiating out from the stage: local pride, gender equality, even mistrust of politicians. Then the final twist comes when the Giant is overcome by distinctly unconventional means. His diet of huge quantities of meat has caused constipation and bad temper, but Jack the cook introduces him to his latest tasty vegetarian option. The Giant’s bowels respond and he becomes sunny and peaceful – so, kids, eat your vegetables! Inevitably Tracey Trott acknowledges her error in not allowing Jack and Jill to follow their true natures, Colin, reduced to a sadly gibbering wreck, adds his own apology – and Wakefield is preserved!
As Tracey Trott Chris Hannon’s knowing way with an apparently harmless line remains a delight and his capacity for mayhem transforms an increasingly manic Twelve Days of Christmas into a water-pistol assault on the audience by him and Sam Nixon (Jack). The two combine in fairly lunatic exchanges with the audience: Tracey’s “boyfriend” as a Sugarbabe and two delightfully obstinate kids who refuse to give the answers expected. Nixon is another who has a wonderful rapport with the audience, but can slide into serious mode quite easily, as in his beautifully restrained duet with Belinda Brass, the leader of a kazoo band and Jack’s long-time love, played with plenty of pizzazz by Bryony Louise Duncan.
Colin is wonderfully slimy in Chris Chilton’s performance, referring to his book of rules with authority and perfecting a whole series of funny walks and dance steps. One of the comic highlights is when he and his mild-mannered and well-intentioned sidekick Ryan (Aiden Carson) get to do a tremendous routine around the Giant’s breakfast. Ryan is also a love interest for Jill, another returning favourite Meg Elsegood, as forthright an axe wielder as one could wish for. Finally the character of Gladys Greenfinger/Vera Veg-Patch (you can tell them apart by the different shoes) is an inspiration in the person of Londiwe Dhlomo-Dlamini, mild and gentle in speech, but anything but in song.
The Giant is artificially generated with the terrifying voice of director Matt Aston, the young Chorus (a team of six, one of three teams) is both disciplined and uninhibited and Buttercup is as lovable as she should be.
Runs until 4 January 2026
