Puss In Boots. Wonderville.

Above The Stag, the UK’s only exclusively LGBT+ theatre production company, is still without a permanent home more than a year since the abrupt closure of their Vauxhall venue. In the interim productions have been shifted to Piccadilly’s Wonderville. The latest of these, Tim McArthur and Lucy Penrose’s adult pantomime Puss In Boots, offers a delightful dose of inclusive and genial Christmastime fun.  Anticipate “cunning action and clever lingus” as well as opportunities aplenty to chant “Hooray for Pussy”, “Show us your buns”, and “Where’s my Fanny?”

Queen Tuppence Fandango (Andrew Lambe channelling a very posh incarnation of Frances de la Tour) rules over the happy town of Nunsnatch. Her son Prince Attwood (Connor McGrane) passes happy hours on gay hook-up app “Mincer” and is rather taken with dishy-but-dumb Master Baker (a fantastic Lucy Penrose). “No naff princesses for us” comments the Queen on learning of her son’s sexual preference. Meanwhile, the town’s guardian angel Puss In Boots (played at press night by understudy Oli Ross) has just done in the nasty neighbouring ogre. The fearless Puss now stands ready to save the town from further peril should the “horn of protection” ever sound (it needs “a big blow to get it going”).

But there is danger on the horizon. Kevin (Adam Rhys-Davies) “vilest ogre in all the land” and younger brother of Puss In Boot’s earlier victim is out for revenge. A visit to Nunsnatch sees him put a curse upon the town: every night at the witching hour one of the male citizens will turn into a chicken. Cue a superfluity of cock jokes and an opportunity to hear Les Misérables hit tune At The End Of The Day sung by six puppet chickens.

Prince Attwood soon falls victim to Kevin’s magic. Distraught at his paramour’s reincarnation as a rooster, Master Baker turns to his aunt and part-time witch Fanny (Andrew Lambe again, this time in full-on scouse fish-wife mode) and Puss for help. The trio come up with the idea of cooking up a magic cake that will rob Kevin of his powers and so lift the curse. What is needed is “a plan to get the flan in the man”.

Aunt Fanny (aka Fabulous fanny the famous French pastry chef), who dreams of a threesome with Tom Daley and Nigel Farage, has the perfect scheme. But it means a perilous trek through the “swamps of despair”, “the waterfalls of chlamydia”, and “the haunted forest of lost partnerships”. Will the group survive an encounter with the enraged ghosts of Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby? The forest’s “Big Hairy Beaver” is there to help, as is a smouldering AA man; “do you like my toolbox”, he enquires suggestively. Aside from the villainous Kevin a fetish-clad servant called “Bitch” stand in the trio’s way.

McArthur and Penrose pack in every tried and tested panto trick in the book including slapstick, boos, hisses, ghost gags, and singalongs. Re-written songs from, amongst others, Salt-N-Pepa, Madonna, Police, Whitney Houston, Britney Spears, and the musical Annie add pace to the proceedings. The result is a show that is almost effortlessly entertaining and, like the magical flan that Fanny cooks up, full of “creamy fruity goodness”.

Perhaps an additional draw for some, Puss In Boots’ volume of double entendres and risqué remarks is pitched notably (and satisfyingly) lower than some of this season’s crop of adult panto, something which makes it an ideal introduction to the genre for the less fruity minded.

Rhys-Davies is tremendous as the vengeance-seeking ogre, as is McGrane is a variety of roles, particularly the winsome prince. Lambe combines a motherly heart-of-gold with the mouth-of-a-sewer to make for a great Dame. Penrose boasts impeccable comic timing and hits the high notes on I Will Always Love You with impressive ease. Joseph Dewey’s cleverly animated cartoon backdrops evoke the feel of a fairytale land. Huge fun.

Writer: Tim McArthur and Lucy Penrose

Director:  Tim McArthur