Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph theatre had to cancel almost half the run of its Christmas show because of coronavirus cases in the company. But, like the previous year’s The Snow Queen, they wisely filmed Jack and the Beanstalk for online audiences. Which means that, mid-January, eight-year-old Hilda and I get to see a panto together after Covid self-isolation put paid to our festive outings.
Nick Lane’s adaptation, directed and choreographed by Gemma Fairlie, has a daydreaming hero whose head is in the clouds even before he starts to climb. But this is a fairytale grounded in modern-day reality. Jack lives with his mum in “an ordinary house on an ordinary street” in Scarborough. The cow is a battered old black-and-white bicycle (albeit with tail and ears) that he intends to trade at Cash Converters. He’s conned by the school bully into swapping it for a magic beanbag and the stalk springs up right in his back garden.
