Charles Court Opera has chosen some unusual stories to turn into pantomimes, and this year is no exception. John Savournin and David Easton’s plot has little relation to history, though in their ”petit pantomime” Napoleon, they borrow the English-French conflict and the names of the characters.
Napoleon (of course) is the baddie, Wellington the nearest to Principle Boy, George III has a line in Buttons-type audience contact and Princess Georgina is a Principal Girl, though largely en travestie, while Marie Antoinette appears as an amorous ghost who changes sides when she meets King George. One of them comments it is all “Total Rubbish” and they are right, but it is also very entertaining and delivered by a cast that ensure that the audience is having as good a time as it seems they are in John Savournin and Benji Sperring’s whirlwind production.
Writer-director Savournin is missing from the cast this year (as last year he has another operatic commitment with ENO), and the audience involved sequence isn’t as hilarious without him, but this is an ensemble of performers who share his enthusiasm and energy, whether playing a glove puppet cow or a crowned head.
After a Franglais opening chorus with batons of bread borne as rifles, a Fact Checker pokes his head in, but he is soon shot down to make way for a plot in which Napoleon, accompanied by the ghost queen, comes to England disguised in drag. They are in search of the Black Prince’s ruby, which can make you invincible. It is hidden in a vault that can only be opened by Horatio Nelson’s right hand.
Meanwhile, the English contingent, disguised as a chef, an onion seller and—who knows what the king thinks he is!—go to France to steal Nelson’s chopped-off hand, which Napoleon has in his pocket.
Eliot Broadfoot is a capering comic George III, Amy J Payne delightful as his daughter Georgina, putting on male uniform to bring a peace where Jennie Jacobs’s thigh-slapping Wellington can live out his dream of raising cows in the Cotswolds. Matthew Kellett (the hero in past Charles Court pantos) is now villain Napoleon, while Rosie Strobel is Marie Antoinette’s ghost with a towering wig that she can squeeze through a small space with regal aplomb.
It is a great cast with fine voices, whether tackling David Eaton’s borrowings from opera or his rewrites of chart songs. My favourite is a celebration of Wellington’s meat pies to the tune of “Downtown”, and, of course, there has to be ABBA.
Lucy Fowler provides colourful costumes and a set that facilitates pop-open panels that speed the action that moves as briskly as Merry Holden’s choreography.
Charles Court Opera seems a perfect fit for Jermyn Street with this boutique panto. If you can’t take ridiculous plots and don’t find deliberately weak jokes funny, this isn’t for you, but for the rest of us, it is a good night out—and it will make you wonder what unlikely tale Savournin and Eaton will offer us next year.