Theatre reviews: Ya Wee Dickie McWhittington | Sleeping Beauty

This year’s panto at the King’s Theatre in Kirkcaldy includes almost every nonsensical panto trope you can think of – and is all the better for it, writes Joyce McMillan

Ya Wee Dickie McWhittington, King’s Theatre, Kirkcaldy ★★★★★

Sleeping Beauty, Adam Smith theatre, Kirkcaldy ★★★

If I were queen of Scotland’s Pantosphere for a day, I would round up all the directors of Scotland’s other pantos – yup, even the very best of them – and bus them in to a performance of Ya Wee Dickie McWhittington at the tiny King’s Theatre in Kirkcaldy, to see just how well the panto business can be done even with limited resources, given lashings of goodwill and a hugely gifted and professional company and crew.

Ya Wee Dickie McWhittington

Creating two and a half hours of fun and mayhem is relatively easy, of course, with a cast of only five (all of whom are brilliant), in a tiny hundred-seater space that soon heats up like a panto pressure-cooker.

What’s most striking about actor-writer Mark McDonnell’s script and panto veteran Jonathan Stone’s production, though, is the sheer skill with which they create an event that includes almost every nonsensical panto trope you can think of – with loads of booing and cheering, “behind yous” and “oh no you won’t’s” – while capturing the magical look of the best traditional panto (cloths by John Lithgow), boasting some of the best jokes in Pantoland and maintaining an absolutely cracking pace, devoid of the pseudo-comic self-indulgence that’s now common in many of Scotland’s larger pantos.

The show’s star, of course, is award-winning actor Billy Mack as Dame Dilly Dysart, mother of our handsome hero Dickie McWhittington (Robin Mackenzie). Billy Mack is a petite and sprightly dame in the Dan Leno tradition, all puffball tartan skirts and wee boots, lustful longings and pure shock at the double entendres she detects everywhere. Alongside Mark McDonnell’s old Fife waterfront sea-dog Captain Oddie, and his lovely daughter Alice, Dame Dilly and her family set off on a sea-borne adventure to London, after the wicked King Rat steals the Heart of Kirkcaldy – a much-mocked and much-loved piece of modern street sculpture – clean away from its spot on the town’s waterfront.

Cue endless fun and some terrific musical numbers, as superb musical director Stephen Roberts, at the keyboard, leads his tiny cast through one banging tune after another, including some fantastic ballad-singing from our hero Dickie, a spine-chilling version of Taylor Swift’s Trouble from hypnotised heroine-turned-villainess Alice (Sarah Brown Cooper), and – against stiff competition – probably the funniest and most brilliant of all the 2024 panto takes on Beyonce’s Texas Hold ‘Em.

The wicked Carabosse played by Lorraine Graham, in the Adam Smith panto, Sleeping Beauty PIC: OnFife/Alastair More Photography

At the heart of the show, of course, is a deep Kirkcaldy patriotism, and a fierce love for a town that has never had its economic troubles to seek; all embodied in Kirkcaldy lass Grace McGill as the Wee Fairy Godmother, stepping up brilliantly to replace an unwell Kirsty Strachan, and spreading a wee bit of Fife magic over the whole show.

There’s also plenty of fun to be had at the Adam Smith Theatre’s 2024 production of Sleeping Beauty, written by Fraser Boyle and directed by Mairi Cowieson. The show’s main problem is a lack of driving narrative pace, as it wanders off down side alleys, and places long comic sequences – featuring some truly terrible jokes – at exactly the point when the story needs to be moving on.

In its favour, though, it has a lovely way with some traditional panto elements, including a slapstick cake-baking scene – featuring Colin Little’s Nurse Philippa Bedpan, and Scott Watson as her daft son Duncan – and a finely choreographed “behind you” session featuring a Fife Bigfoot the yeti.

David Rankine is an unusually likeable and handsome Prince, and the Adam Smith young team are in fine form as surly attendants to Lorraine Graham’s wicked Carabosse.

The cast of Sleeping Beauty at the Adam Smith Theatre (Pic: OnFife/Alastair More Photography)

Even if it takes a little too long to get there, this Sleeping Beauty eventually delivers a rousing happy ending, complete with a jolly song sheet, and a seasonal roar of Merry Christmas, to us all.

Ya Wee Dickie McWhittington at the King’s Theatre, Kirkcaldy, until 11 January; Sleeping Beauty at the Adam Smith Theatre, Kirkcaldy, until 30 December