Jack and the Beanstalk – Review – City Varieties, Leeds

By Matt Callard, December 2024

It starts with a bang – literally – and ends some two and a half hours later with a shotgun wedding, streamers falling and an entire theatre on its feet dancing to the umpteenth reprise of ‘We Will Rock You’.

Inbetween we get soaked by water guns, inundated with innudendo, threatened with extreme violence by a baddie called Fleshcreep (Kenny Davies) and are witness to enough fart gags to make a classful of six-year-olds roll their eyes – almost.

Yes, it can only be the return of panto (“oh no it isn’t” etc) – and the annual raucous ‘rock n roll’ version at City Varieties amps up a jukebox of mostly sixties classics all played by a skilful ensemble who seamlessly swap acting for instruments and vice versa as we progress.

“Amorous eye”

There’s a rip-roaring giant that’s a dead ringer for a bobble-headed Ed Sheeran, a dame to die for in the ample shape of Simon Nock as Dolly Durden, and the welcome return of a lesser-spotted pantomime horse – alright, if we’re being pedantic, it’s a pantomime cow. There’s also some poor bloke called Elliott (cue ET gags) on the front row who, unfortunately for him, catches the amorous eye of Dame Dolly for the duration.

It’s all a fairly traditional take – the script is delivered in rhyming verse that occasonally grates, Jack (Harry F. Brown) is perhaps a little under-courageous, Jill (Lucy Ireland) could be more gutsy – but, frankly, nobody cares when the colours are bright, the effects are effective and the big, bold whole entertains across the generations like only panto can.

Stealing the show, as should always be the case, is the dame. Splendidly costumed throughout, rude gags abound – one of which, directed to a fairy called Aubergine (Anna Soden) about her emoji namesake, is the night’s best. At one point Nock finds himself on stage when he should have exited – “What are you doing here?” enquires Dan Carter-Hope’s Squire Snuffbox. Cue a riotous five minutes as the props become the Dame’s playthings and the cast and audience crease up. Heck, it may all have been scripted anyway, but it didn’t look like it.

“Crowd-pleasing”

More laughs come from Stephanie Cremona as the Giant’s Wife – a character convinced of gigantic stature despite being definitively human-sized (save for a pair of enormous feet). My kids, who were riveted throughout, declared her their favourite character. Similarly, Guy Freeman as Billy Nomates, takes the village idiot into whole new areas of, well, idiocy – his love for Jill elliciting unrequited anguish as the audience responded with sympathetic “awwws”.

The songs went down well despite being a curious mix. Only Bruno Mars’s ‘Marry You’ could be called contemporary and there was a definite energy dip with ‘What Becomes of the Broken Hearted’. Still, ‘Hit the Road Jack’ was a crowd-pleasing highlight by the Dame and ‘I Put a Spell On You’ a nice choice for the wicked and mesmerising Fleshcreep, who must be a contender for best evil laugh of 2024.

The beanstalk growing set piece was effective, Jack later clambering up it into the stage-adjacent boxes – and when finally it got the famous axe chop the countdown was ear-splitting. All of which led to a loud and uplifting finale, with a thoroughly engaged audience up on their feet clapping along.

What a way to start the Christmas countdown.

‘Jack and the Beantstalk’ is at City Varieties until 12th January 2025
images: Ant Robling