ALSO PLAYING
The Cheerios performers always have a warm rapport with the audience, and they seem to have worked out the formula that keeps people coming back. Above all, they play to the recognition factor, the items that recur every year on cue, so the laughs and cheers in Jack And The Beanstalk (Tivoli, until Jan 12) are already set up in advance, just waiting to be tapped into.
As always, Alan Hughes as Sammy Sausages leads the way with his earto-ear smile, dressed in some daft costume, shouting ‘Hello boys and girls,’ keeping everything perky. Indeed, things often flag when he’s off stage too long. The Buffy dame (Rob Murphy) repeatedly gurgles ‘Hiya Daddy’ at men in any row, strangles her vowels to turn phrases like ‘swear by my hair’ into ‘swurr by my hurr,’ goes in for multiple double entendres and throws a leg over any man on stage. But, to be honest, I wish Buffy could, even occasionally, add a little more comic subtlety to her one-tone thrusting and gyrating.
There’s a clatter of pop songs such as It’s My Party and One Way Or Another at a brisk tempo, and the inevitable few phrases of Wrecking Ball brought the house down. All accompanied by lively minimalist dancing, limited by the small stage. The jokes that get the heartiest laughs are the obvious ones that are signalled well in advance. Adults do as much of the ‘No he isn’t’ as the kids, and everyone goes away happy.
This year’s beauties are Nadia Forde as a slightly incompetent Cupid trying to promote romance, and Michele McGrath as the nervous Jill in love with the gauche Jack (Sean Carey). She looks lovely and sings sweetly, and Bryan Murray is a suitably villainous evil baron.
The reduction in high-camp twittering this year is an improvement, but it would be nice to have more charm in the writing for the Jack and Jill
romance.