Review: DICK WHITTINGTON, Derby Arena
Photo credit: Robert Day
This year’s pantomime at Derby Arena is Dick Whittington. A young local lad from Derby heads to Ye Olde London to find his fortune. London is ridden with rats which means business is far from booming for the Alderman Fitzwarren’s cheese themed hotel, The Stilton, but Dick’s cat Kit makes him remarkably sought after.
Morgan Brind’s script is quite inventive, changing many of the settings and character backstories but still giving us the traditional story beats. Some of these changes don’t add much, but giving a backstory as to why there are suddenly human sized rats everywhere is a fun addition. Brind also designs the production and the show looks stunning. The set and costumes are wonderfully colourful. Every year it is impressive what they can do given we’re in the middle of the cycling velodrome rather than a traditional theatre with flies! It would have been nice to have an extra front cloth or two so the ‘show cloth’ wasn’t reused for numerous scenes.
Director Mark Chatterton ensures the show moves along at a great pace, with choreographer Matthew Wesley filling every inch of the stage with energetic dance routines in each musical number. It is great to see so many performers on stage with adult and juvenile ensembles coming together seamlessly.
Much of the cast is made up of returning regulars with a handful of people new to the Derby Arena panto.
Wendi Peters headlines the production as Queen Rat. She clearly loves being the baddie and the audience loves to boo her. She captures the ‘mad scientist’ energy that this particular character needs perfectly. She leads big company numbers with great energy and strong vocals. Nicola Martinus-Smith, regular Derby Arena panto performer, takes on the role of Fairy Bowbells. She is generally very lovely, delivering some beautiful vocals, and the back-and-forths with Peters are good but on the whole, she’s fairly one note and a little more variety in her performance would elevate things.
Morgan Brind returns as the Dame, Mabel Arch, the hotel receptionist. Brind has great rapport with the audience from the off. He has a series of increasingly outrageous costumes and delivers his musical numbers with ease. However, without a traditional comic in this production, he often doesn’t have anyone to bounce off of on stage.
Derby favourite and local performer Kristian Cunningham returns to play Dick Whittington this year. He is a delight as always, delivering some impressive vocals throughout. He has a lovely rapport with Kit the Cat and starts to develop a relationship with Alice Fitzwarren, but this never really seems to amount to anything. This year, he has to try and be both comic-come-audience best friend as well as the romantic lead and unfortunately, it means neither is done as fully as you might want. Kai Harris is wonderfully acrobatic and wonderfully loveable as Kit the Cat. Had the script committed to making Kit a fully talking cat, even more of a fun relationship could have been developed between him and Dick.
Newcomer to the Derby Arena panto Ruby Hewitt is a lovely Alice Fitzwarren. She has a stunning singing voice, adding some lovely soprano moments that you don’t often get in panto. She portrays the character with strength but it would have been good if the script gave her a job or some life aspirations, as she does often seem to just be the Alderman’s daughter. She and Roddy Peters as the Alderman do have a lovely, heart-warming relationship. We really buy into them as father and daughter. Peters is a regular in the Derby Arena panto and this year, he seems to be mainly be there to keep driving the story forward but it would be good to see him involved in a bit more panto business – although that being said, this is a plot heavy panto (especially Act 1) and not filled with loads of gags.
Dick Whittington at Derby Arena is a feel good family pantomime, boasting colourful sets and costumes, a talented cast and plenty of laughs.
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Jacob Bush
Dick Whittington plays at Derby Arena until 31 December, with further info here.