Dick Whix-lington Review

By Mike Priestley

Over a long lifetime I’ve seen a great many pantomimes – as a child, a man, a parent and grandparent, as a paying punter and as a professional theatre reviewer. Some productions have been large and lavish, others small and threadbare. Some have starred major show-business names, including the legendary Ken Dodd in a record-breaking panto at Bradford Alhambra in the early days of his stellar career, in the theatre where the great Billy Pearce now packs ’em in year after year. Some have wowed me, others disappointed.

But I’ve never seen a panto quite like The Adventures of Dick Whix-lington, delighting audiences last week at Whixley Village Hall where I was privileged to catch the Saturday afternoon performance. Written and directed by Damien Poole, who moved into the village a few years ago after founding his DPTA theatre school in Harrogate and Guiseley, this was a gleefully chaotic feast of fun performed by a cast who were obviously thoroughly enjoying themselves in front of an audience who were with them all the way.

This was community panto at its best, pulling in references to local places, issues, people and businesses and in the process pulling everyone together, so the audience became part of the show (OH YES THEY DID!!!).

It was a show in which anything could happen, and frequently did. Only in a true family-friendly production could the major love interest “Alice Kirk-Hammerton” be singing lustily centre-stage while her toddler son, sitting with the rest of the family in the audience, shouted out equally lustily to attract her attention. And nobody, either on stage or off, batted an eyelid. Only in this show could Dick Whix-lington, in the company of Nimble Mat the Railway Cat, be sailing to London down the River Ouse (to secure a pie-baking contract from “The Duchess of Betty’s”) and encounter a dozen immaculately drilled tap-dancing penguins drawn from the ranks of the DPTA Whixley Tappers. Or King Rat be a sardonic Brummie. Or Nan Tuck the Cook cast off the ropes in which the dastardly rats had bound her and perform an energetic line-dance routine before tying herself up again. Surreal? It makes Monty Python seem wholly logical by comparison.

From the first appearance of the Narrator, whose insecurity and indignation grew throughout the show as she was repeatedly upstaged by other characters, to the rousing finale with the whole cast crammed on to the modest stage belting out I’m a Believer, it was full-on merriment from start to finish. Those long, tedious romantic duets so beloved of some other panto were kept to a minimum. And the laughs came thick and fast.

Among them, of course, the innuendoes. No “Dick” Whittington panto would be worthy of its name without them. And this one made the most of them, largely delivered in ringing tones and accompanied with a knowing look by “Idle Jack Cattal”, who commanded the stage every time “he” stepped out between the curtains and immediately had the kids onside.

I’ve deliberately not named any of the performers. It would be unfair to namecheck some while not naming them all. They had obviously all worked their socks off to make this show such a success. The same goes for the people who had laboured behind the scenes to produce the imaginative costumes and bright sets.

The afternoon was a joy, and a credit not only to cast and crew but to the people of Whixley and district who have supported the show so enthusiastically. You’re lucky people to live in such a community. “OH YES YOU ARE!!!”