Potted Panto at Wilton’s Music Hall Review
DISCLOSURE – TICKETS TO SEE THE SHOW WERE GIFTED TO THE REVIEWER AND GUEST FOR THE PURPOSES OF WRITING THE REVIEW
Reviewed by Mel Randle
On Friday night we donned our Christmas jumpers and had a family night out at Wilton’s Music Hall to see Potted Panto. If you haven’t been to Wilton’s before, it’s a remarkable venue – the last surviving Grand Victorian Music Hall, restored and offering a wonderful experience whatever you go to watch!
Potted Panto is a show I have heard of but in my ignorance, I have never considered it based on the fact ‘it’s not a real panto’. Well, it seems I have been doing myself a disservice for 19 years!! It is one of the funniest shows I have seen! No it’s not a panto, it’s seven rolled into one!. The three of us – husband and daughter (8) laughed our way through it from the minute it was curtain up until the rapturous applause at the end!
Written and performed by double act Daniel Clarkson and Jefferson Turner, it is 80 minutes of pure silliness that somehow appeals to all ages. Who knew I would get to the ripe old age of 48 and still laugh at a custard pie in the face! We had everything from topical jokes based on current affairs to the downright daft, but the delivery was such that everyone was laughing whether you ‘got it’ or not!
The staging was simple. They didn’t need anything other than a couple of moveable boxes because the magic was in the performance aided by props and costumes. That being said, the costumes weren’t anything elaborate either. Akin to the dressing up box at the local museum. But again we didn’t care. When you are watching a grown man go off stage and come back a moment later dressed as snow-white, a moose or a French chicken, you are not studying the calibre of costume! With some puppetry, ventriloquism and half a pantomime cow thrown in to the mix, I don’t think there was a genre of theatre not covered!
The actors engaged with the audience throughout. We had all the classic favourites -‘he’s behind you’, ‘oh no he’s not’ and of course lots of booing!! There were some fabulous interactive scenes which I won’t give away (but take a poncho) *only joking or am I?? And we were all on our feet at one point for the ‘3D scene’. There were a few ‘victims’ picked on in the audience, so choose your seats carefully! And if as a comedian you ever run out of content, ask the kids! When they posed the question ‘How shall we punish the villain?’, one child’s response was ‘push him out the top of The Shard!’
From start to finish this was just an easy watch, an hour and a half escape from the real world where we could leave all life’s stress and constraints at the door and just lose ourselves in utter nonsense. I’m not sorry I have seen this show, I am just sorry it has taken me so long to see it. If it’s not on your Christmas to-do-list, it’s imperative that you put it on there now!!
Rating: 5/5
Potted Panto is at Wilton’s Music Hall Until Saturday 4th January 2025
£15 – £33 full price | £12.50 – £30.50 concessions
For more information and to book visit wiltons.org.uk.