Review: BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, Churchill Theatre Bromley

Photo credit: Ryan Dinham

It is fifty years since Su Pollard appeared on Opportunity Knocks and here in Beauty and the Beast at the Churchill Theatre in Bromley, she teams up with the youthful Jamie Leahey, runner up in 2022 Britain’s Got Talent. The combination of her experience and his energy and enthusiasm promises a good pantomime. Sadly, they are somewhat let down by Alan McHugh’s tired and worn-out script. It is not enough in our view to insert standard comedy routines into pantomimes regardless of the title just because they have worked in previous years and still causes amusement for first time pantomime guests under ten. One of the few fresh references, the 6-7 meme, gets one of the best reactions of the afternoon.

He does at least keep the bare bones of the familiar Beauty and the Beast tale, from the prologue of the Prince cursed into a Beast through to the final petal drop of the rose but in between, he inserts comedy “as old as time itself”. As in many of his scripts of recent years, he uses the “Musculator” shrinking machine, the poisonous python tongue twister, a weak Mastermind routine, the Elvis song with backing singer inserting the “whoa whoa in the gap”, and ‘If I Was Not Upon the Stage’ song. They are all delivered in a satisfactory way but even Su Pollard notes at one point that they laughed at that yesterday…and she might have added in previous years too.

Jamie enthusiastically embraces it all with energy and has ten years of pantomime experience that belies his young age. His puppet, Chuck, and he have their usual banter; he uses two face masks to amusingly embarrass two audience members though his ventriloquism as they twerk and dance. He also throws himself whole heartedly into the ‘If I Were Not Upon the Stage’ routine as the butt of the truncheon, frying pan and boxing gloves, which is executed with good precision and control.

Su Pollard is surprisingly light footed, tripping across the stage and fully living up to her national treasure status. Ben Stock as Betty Bouffant is completely underused and we know is capable of making a much bigger contribution to the show. Samantha Womack certainly looks the part striding on and off stage left and gets several songs including ‘Bad Girls’, but we are sure is capable of much more. Sheri Lineham makes a sweet Belle opposite Alfie French ‘s Prince Sebastian and the very muscular Flash Harry, played by the appropriately named Tom Mussell.

The settings are simple with a taxi cut out used for Pollard’s first entrance, but the throne chair used for the beast transformation reveals its secret too obviously in the lighting and smoke. The sound mix too is occasionally frustrating with the band overwhelming the vocals in many songs.

At one hour forty-five minutes including the interval, the show shortchanges the paying audience and at times, there is a sense that the 1pm performance is being rushed through ahead of the 5pm Sunday night show. That should never be the case.

This is a straightforward introduction for young audiences to pantomime and to this familiar tale and it would not take much effort to provide the talent on the stage with fresher and cleverer material to satisfy us all.

*** Three stars

Reviewed by: Nick Wayne

Beauty and the Beast plays at Churchill Theatre Bromley until 4 January, with further info here.