Innuendo

This evening we were out of the door by 6:15pm and in central London. After a quick pit stop at Pret A Manger (for a noticeably expensive sandwich) we headed into the Palladium for this year’s pantomime: Jack & the Beanstalk. As usual this was hilarious. We were in the Royal Circle, towards the back, with a large group of ladies who seemed to know some of the people and were definitely out for a good time.   A musical theatre actor who we saw in Eugenius a few years ago was sat a few seats away from me and also seemed to know some in the cast.

Julian Clary was, as usual, fantatsic and seems to have a bigger role than some years. Alexandra Burke was the music star and Dawn French (“a budget Miriam Margolyes”), Nigel Havers, Gary Wilmot and Paul Zerdin all make a welcome return. The set-piece where children from the audience are brought onto the pantomime stage to talk about Christmas has a wonderful twist where one of the kids is really part of the cast and gets thrown off-stage for talking back to Paul Zerdin.  Nonetheless, I do wonder why any children are brought along to this panto - it’s entire reason to exist is innuendo.

Getting home we had planned to have the leftover sprouts that were cooked earlier in the week but we went to the chicken shop instead.