Although Pantomime these days is traditionally a Christmas event, there have always been Easter outings for some titles and while theatres remain closed this Easter several streamed versions are available. Congress Theatre in Cwmbran, South Wales, offers a seventy-minute Jack and The Beanstalk, and it is a fun well-produced and captured show that is sure to entertain young families.
Tom Whalley is a new name to me in writing pantomime scripts but following his excellent Pantolive production of Cinderella with all its interactivity, I was interested to see his more traditional pantomime script for this welsh production of Jack and the Beanstalk. He again sticks closely to the traditional version of this Pantomime story but peppers it with good and dreadful jokes. However, it misses the live audience and despite some audience reactions edited in you can still sense the challenge for the comic routines without the audience response. Even if we are laughing at home as we frequently are with his scripts the cast feel slightly muted by the absence of real interaction and are left weakly laughing at their own jokes.
