Northern Stage
13th December 2018
It’s that time of year again, the party season, goodwill to all men (and women) and of course along with the festive cheer comes the panto season. The suggestibles have been doing their annual improvised panto for over ten years now, which has it’s routes in a format developed by Suggestibles founders Ian Mclaughlin and Bev Fox in the nineties when they were performing in London. The place was packed tonight, with 200 to 300 in the audience making for a great atmosphere.
This was the first time I had seen this format and it looked like great fun. All areas of the theatre were opened up, including behind the stage, leaving a large central stage, which is benefiting from the recent refurbishment. I was close to the viewing near the front,. a bit too close as at one point my head was rubbed and used to represent a magic eight ball, not the first time my heads been used as a prop in a show, it’s worryingly common place. Various different costumes were distributed around the stage for the improvisers to use, if they suited a particular scene. There was a trolley used as both a prop and a way of getting costumes around. There were also boxes around the stage, which I think represented houses where the panto was set.
In the team is Bev Fox, Ian Mclaughin, Carl Kennedy, Tom Walton, Rachel Glover and Alex Ross on the keyboard and assorted instruments. Also in this show was the excellent John Mawer who is a regular guest for the troop and was the main panto villain Simon. Several crowd members also helped out on the night, one in particular they used in a suggestion of something you were afraid of as a child, which was the dark, from audience member Alex. They then proceeded to sit him down wrap him up and tell him a story inspired by his suggestion. The story of Simon Fredrick and his hatred of light. Banishing a town to live in eternal darkness. There was a suggestion asked for a family name, which someone suggested the racists, which was turned into Ray cist head of the cist family, among other members little cist, anal cist and such.
We had a mythical Centaur, squirrel rats, a sand man, bees and a woman with three legs, among many characters all with a variety of great costumes. After the beak a series of games were in play, the first of which was to recreate the first half of the show in just a minute (and a bit). After this we had the players speak in various accents suggested by the audience including Jersey, or possibly Guernsey based on the actual accents, always a lot of fun. Other fun scenes included Carl giving birth, Lots of corpsing and pimping going on between the players and the final bit of the show using suggestions to recreating the 12 days of Christmas song with different suggestions from the audience such as 10 Tories wanking, flappy fannies, dildos and 12 whores a leaking.
Overall this was a fun show, especially if you like audience participation like doing the Macarena from the nineties, which actually happened. Be warned though this is not a show for kids, but if you’re after some cheeky festive fun, check it out. You won’t be disappointed.
Shows remaining :
Gala theatre 14th December 8pm
Seaton delaval arts centre 15th December 7.30pm
Queens hall arts Hexham 19th December 7.30pm
Northern stage 20th December 8pm
Arts centre Washington 21st December 8pm SOLD OUT
Cumberland arms 22nd December 8.30pm SOLD OUT
Frank Cromartie Murphy
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