Keith Jack and Craig Chalmers as the Narrator and Joseph (without his Technicolor Dreamcoat).
PLAYHOUSE, EDINBURGH
SLEEPING BEAUTY ****KING'S THEATRE, GLASGOW
EETING BEAUTY: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE SPELL GOES WRONG ****TRON THEATRE, GLASGOW
WHAT were the chances, back in Old Testament times, of a poor shepherd boy from Canaan who was sold into slavery in Egypt one day becoming First Minister to the Pharaoh, and one of the most powerful men in the ancient world? No better, I suppose, than the chance of any one of the 21st-century kids whose only dream is of celebrity and fortune actually making that dream come true, through one of the new generation of reality talent shows on prime-time television.
So there's a strange synergy at the Playhouse this Christmas between the Biblical tale of Joseph and the story of Craig Chalmers, the Edinburgh-born singer who graduated from the finals of the television talent-hunt Any Dream Will Do to the leading role in this cheerful, kitsch-laden, but intensely likeable Bill Kenwright touring version of the Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber classic.
From the first moment the handsome Chalmers steps on stage – flashing his neat little loincloth and gleaming chest muscles – he is cheered warmly, not so much because of anything he does, as simply because of who he is. And when, at the end, he makes a little curtain speech about how his personal dream has come true, then climbs aboard his theatrical forklift to rise gleaming above the audience in his rainbow skirts, he seems like the modern apotheosis of the dream of celebrity and power, against all the odds, that lies at the heart of Rice and Lloyd Webber's story. For better or worse, this is a local fairytale for our times, and by the end of the show, the atmosphere in the theatre is little short of electric.
All of which makes this Joseph… a show to remember, even if it's otherwise simply a regular reworking of one of the most familiar and successful musical shows in British theatre, complete with its famous series of musical pastiche numbers ranging from French chanson (Those Canaan Days), to the roaring rock'n'roll of the Elvis-impersonating Pharaoh. The most impressive performers on stage, by a long mile, are the chorus of local schoolchildren, who sing superbly throughout; and they are closely followed by the terrific team of dancing, singing, scheming brothers.
Chalmers's fellow Any Dream Will Do finalist, Keith Jack, shows huge talent in the key role of the Narrator, using his voice with real storytelling skill. As for Chalmers himself – well, he radiates charm, but sings like a man who has yet to learn how to pitch his big, blaring voice in a 3,000-seat theatre. Apart from that, it's all colour, laughs, and youthful energy; and a megamix finale that brings together some of the catchiest tunes Andrew Lloyd Webber ever wrote, and literally has the audience dancing in the aisles.
For a Christmas spectacular truly made in Scotland, though, travel west to the big, glorious pantomime at the King's in Glasgow, directed by Royal Lyceum associate artist Tony Cownie. This Sleeping Beauty is popular theatre par excellence, of course, and features plenty of blaring rock music, as well as some weird computer-generated imagery involving a fight between the prince (live) and a dragon (CGI).
At heart, though, this remains a rock-solid traditional panto, with a non-traditional but still terrific, tender and funny female Dame in Karen Dunbar; a fabulously wicked villainess in the stunning shape of Dawn Steele, and – of course – the indispensable and inspired panto tradition-bearer Gerard Kelly in the role of Chester the Jester.
The love-story is a shade more feeble than it should be, but everything else about the show roars along in fine style; and it's driven by such a powerful groundswell of non-stop audience participation – superbly orchestrated by the rubber-kneed Kelly, in his prime – that by the end of the evening the show seems less like a conventional performance and more like the kind of terrific seasonal celebration of shared humanity and culture that panto always should be, and just occasionally is.
There's no chance of the Glasgow panto getting above itself, though, so long as it exists in the same "pantosphere" as the annual Christmas show at the Tron. There's no doubt that the Tron meta-panto – this year, a joke version of Sleeping Beauty, co-written by Gordon Dougall and Fletcher Mathers – has lost a certain political edge since musical theatre genius Forbes Masson gave up writing it. Masson had a way of setting his pantos in an imaginary satirical version of Scotland in which all kinds of weird dystopian things could happen, around the key panto theme of the abuse of power. Now, the shows seem more like a routine send-up, laced with slightly bitter showbiz in-jokes.
In the end, though, the Tron panto formula is still working pretty well, as Fairy Fumblethistle gets the spell wrong, and saves Princess Bess from the curse of the wicked villain by condemning her, topically enough, to eat for a hundred years, rather than sleep. As Bess inflates into a one-woman obesity crisis, and her handsome Prince challenges sexual convention by falling in love with her pet pig, the show veers between the daft and the hilarious, before dipping into a touching if slightly incongruous tribute to the great Tron Dame, Robert Carr, who died in the course of the year.
The designs, by ex-Citz genius Kenny Miller, are also a constant delight; sitting at a skew-whiff angle to conventional panto design that perfectly reflects the essential relationship between the booming Scottish panto scene, and the one show that can be relied on, each year, to cast a sharply satirical eye over the whole tradition.
&149 Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat until 13 January; Sleeping Beauty until 12 January; Eeting Beauty until 6 January.
