Danny Adams is a Five star Pantomime comic and circus clown and is now well established as the star in the Newcastle Theatre Royal annual Christmas Pantomime having this year reached his fifteenth consecutive production at the venue and is joined as usual by his father Clive Webb (the straight man of the double act) and for the thirteenth year by the Dame, Chris Haywood under the continued direction of the prolific Michael Harrison. The Geordie audience know what to expect and lap up the familiar routines and shout outs but this year they appear to take few risks to the established formula that they know works.
I first saw Danny Adams and his father in the 2004 Pantomime at the Regent Theatre Stoke on Trent and he made a big impression as a natural comic, the archetypal cheeky chappie and silly Billy. He appeared to combine classic circus skills with traditional music hall style delivery and was always centre stage. Fifteen years on the comic skills are well practised and everyone in the cast becomes his stooge or feed as the whole show revolves around him. In some ways this year's title does not lend itself to this approach and too often one finds oneself comparing the rest of the show to Disney's version of the story. There are nods to it in the excellent costumes especially for Dick the candlestick (Steve Arnott) and Tock the clock (Recce Sibbald) as well as in Belle's (Laura Evans) yellow ball gown but the famous music is all missing and the story itself stripped back to become the link between a wide range of set piece routines for Danny Adams as Danny! Indeed his own brother Michael Potts now joins in the family affair as a sort of Ben Warris character, the daft half of a famous musical hall act.
