Mother Goose review: Madcap camp panto that could’ve been drawn from pages of Viz-John Nathan-Entertainment – Metro

From left, Anna-Jane Casey, John Bishop, and Ian McKellen (Picture: Manuel Harlan)

All pantos need a great dame but, beneath make-up that might have been applied while on a pogo stick and a dress that could have been made from Del Boy’s curtains, this one has the great classical actor and Lord Of The Rings star Ian McKellen who, as Mother Goose, channels his inner Les Dawson.

Yet the genius of Cal McCrystal’s joyous production is the paring of McKellen’s revolting dame with the immensely likeable comedian John Bishop as her husband.

Seemingly bemused by the madcap camp of this show, Bishop’s Scouse spouse is the everyman other half of a marriage that could have been drawn from the pages of Viz. 

‘I never thought I’d end up snogging Gandalf,’ he says unable to resist wiping McKellen’s lippy from his mouth.

Jonathan Harvey’s script broadly shares its plot with London’s other Mother Goose at Hackney Empire. It sees MG becoming the subject of a bet between the good fairy Encanta (Sharon Ballard) and the evil Malignia (Karen Mavundukure). The latter reckons that the kind-hearted Mother Goose, who here runs an animal sanctuary in a disused Debenhams (don’t ask), can be corrupted by greed.

It turns out she is right and in a hilarious sequence of celebrity events, including the Oscars, London Fashion Week and the World Cup, a series of pictures show Mother Goose’s ugly mug with the world’s beautiful people, an A-list that ends with her photo-bombing Harry and Meghan.

McKellen (centre) and Bishop (right) play ‘a revolting dame and her husband’ (Picture: Manuel Harlan)

The disused Debenhams department store serves as an animal sanctuary (Picture: Manuel Harlan)

‘A joyous production’ (Picture: Manuel Harlan)

Meanwhile the copious singing talent here is rightly given its due with Ballard, Mavundukure and West End star Anna-Jane Casey as the golden egg-laying goose Cilla each raising the roof when their moment comes.

But the spirit of the evening is best captured by Bishop’s Vic who, looking like Bert the chimney sweep from Mary Poppins could have easily broken into Chim Chim Cher-ee though ends up leading the audience in Sweet Caroline instead.

Still, the feel is less Christmas office party than Victorian music hall.  All this and Shakespeare too. The bard is beautifully evoked when in a plot-appropriate moment McKellen performs Portia’s speech about mercy from The Merchant Of Venice, but also when his Mother Goose man-spreads herself while sitting down, revealing almost as much as the actor’s famously nude King Lear.

Mother Goose is showing at Duke of York’s Theatre, London, until January 29 and then touring

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