Dick Whittington At Stockport Plaza Review

Reviewed by L Gwilliam

We love a Pantomime in our family and we go to at least 2 every Christmas. I don’t think we have ever seen Dick Whittington though in all our years (9) of reviewing or paying for the theatre.

We were invited to the opening night of Stockport Plaza’s adaptation of Dick Whittington and we were super excited to watch as a family of 4. My children aren’t familiar with the story and I vaguely remember what happened thinking back to my childhood.

The show stars Brian Capron, Richard Hillman in ‘Coronation Street’, as the Rat King and Stockport’s much loved Panto Star, Bradley Thomas, as Idle Jack. We have been to many panto performances at Stockport Plaza over the years and it was great to see Bradley Thomas’ face return to the stage. He’s brilliant at engaging the crowd with his witty one liners and always gets everyone joining in with shouts and applauses.

The story of Dick Whittington sees the story of Richard “Dick” Whittington, a poor boy, who becomes Lord Mayor of London. This enactment has been a leading British pantomimes since at least the nineteenth century. This story has many differing attributes to the original story of Dick Whittington that I remember from being a child but that made it more magical.

The play was cast brilliantly, with your usual baddies and goodies entertaining the crowd and a load of “he’s behind you” thrown into the mix. Everyone in the audience was joining in, cheering, booing and shouting “hello gorgeous”. It was an amazing atmosphere, especially after the last 18 months of not being able to go to live performances. It was great to be back amongst other people enjoying a bit of live entertainment.

The stage setting and costumes were perfect and really set the scene of an 19th century London backdrop. I love a bit of glitz and glam and we certainly weren’t disappointed with the costumes. There was lots of variety and we loved it!

Our children absolutely love the panto and thoroughly enjoyed this performance. However, it did run until quite late and both children were very tired on a Friday night after a long week at school. I would suggest that if you have young children, an afternoon or weekend show would be more suitable.

The recommendations on facemasks have recently changed to suggest that people start wearing them again and we were a little worried about spacing and being told to wear a facemask throughout the performance. We wore face masks when entering but found that the seats were spaced enough for us to not be too close to people so we could remove them to allow us to breath a little better.

We had a brilliant night at the performance of Dick Whittington and we can’t wait to return next year for another brilliant show live from Stockport Plaza.

Rating: I would rate this panto 4.5/5 and would recommend to my friends with young families.

Running time is 2.5 hours

Tickets start from £15.40 and can be purchased from https://stockportplaza.co.uk/whats-on/dick-whittington-2/