Hallo. My name is Thea and I am four. I hadn’t been to a panto before so I was very excited when I went to see Jack and the Beanstalk.
It was very, very, very good . I got the chance to jump up and down shouting “behind you” and “knickers Billy” for a long, long time.
Sweets were thrown into the audience and we had to duck when there was a food fight. It was lots of fun.
I thought that the giant was really big and scarey until mummy told me it wasn’t real.
My favourite character was the Sweet Pea fairy as she wore a pretty dress and got married in the end.

Thea’s mummy writes :
In panto there is nothing like a dame and in this production of Jack and the Beanstalk at the Hackney Empire there are a few impressive ones. First up is Susie McKenna, who writes, directs and stars as Broad Bean, one of the baddies.

McKenna’s script has taken some liberties with the traditional story of Jack, a boy who sells Buttercup, his mother’s cow, for some magic beans, which grow into a beanstalk that he climbs to the land of a nasty giant.



The story is set in the frozen land of Hackneydale, put under a curse by the giant after his wife was killed by Jack’s Dad, who thought she was trying to steal Jack. Jack’s Dad has been missing ever since. Will Jack be reunited with him and can he lift the curse? Of course, being a panto, and a right-on one at that, I am not giving anything away by saying that it all ends happily.

But, in the meantime, we enjoy the fun as a strong cast act, sing and dance their way through the story with gusto. Clive Rowe, the Olivier award-winning performer, dominates most of the proceedings as Jack’s Mum, Dame Daisy Trot. He makes a popular return to the Empire, strutting around the stage, a physically imposing comic presence, in a variety of amusing dressess, deadpanning his way through the good and bad jokes. Of a black and white furry dress, he tells us that no cow was hurt in the making of it and occasionally threatens to corpse the rest of the cast with his timing and ad-libbing. He has a great voice too.

Jack is the Holby City star Matt Dempsey, who was the only disappointment for Thea’s dad. He said that in his day principal boys were girls. He had been hoping for something leggy in boots. I said that was exactly what Dempsey was, and I wasn’t at all disappinted.

Jack’s sidekicks were Tameka Empson as Off Her Trolley Molly and Terel Nugent as Silly Billy. The 3 Non-Blondes star Empson does a nice line in unrequited love for Jack and a good Catherine Tate impression when taken prisoner in the giant’s kitchen, where she is about to be eaten (Am I bovvered?).

Everyone was laughing when Nugent had his moment in the spotlight singing Lemar’s If There’s Any Justice in the World about his unrequited love for Molly, but shut up quickly to listen to his spine-tingling voice.

Michael Kirk and McKenna were the baddies, green and broad beams who hoofed and cackled their way through the show with some so-bad-they-were-good gags (will you still love me when I’m old and ugly? I do.) The children were equally delighted and and horrified by the bogey-throwing.

The growing on the beanstalk delighted the children and although Thea was scared of the giant at first she was probably one of a few. The giant made an impressive entrance and, while obviously a puppet, was huge. He lumbered around the stage with no obvious wires. How do they do that?

There could be some tightening of the second half, particularly the food fight, the escape from the giant’s castle and a song from the beans. But I’m quibbling. Altogether, the show is a festive treat. Oh yes it is.

The pantomine continues until January 7; box office: 0208 985 2424. The Empire website is here (when working).