pantomime
Babes in the Wood
★★★★☆ Fantastic fun
If you are hankering for a proper family panto after missing out in recent years, you could hardly do better than Edinburgh People’s Theatre’s Babes in the Wood, at the Church Hill until Sunday 18th December.
Beauty & the Beast: The Panto
★★★☆☆ Charming
Beauty & the Beast: The Panto, the Christmas offering from Forth Children’s Theatre, has the appeal of a traditional pantomime. Like many pantos, it lacks a little in subtlety and smoothness, but makes up for it in determination and pizzazz.
Cinderella
★★★☆☆ High Spirited
St Serf’s Players continue their successful panto collaboration with the Trinity Theatre Company for a Cinderella at Inverleith St Serf’s Church Hall that is gutsy and brisk in all the right ways.
Christmas Listings
What’s on Edinburgh’s stages this Festive Season.
It feels like theatre is properly back after the Covid hiatus, as every Edinburgh theatre and amateur theatre company rolls out its Christmas or seasonal offering.
Sinbad the Pantomime
★★★★☆ Sin-good
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas as Sinbad sails into Musselburgh’s Brunton Theatre for the festive season. And with the Arabian Nights legend, played with gusto by Calum Barbour, comes a slew of familiar faces making up the supporting cast.
Jamie and the Unicorn online
★★★★☆ Streaming good fun
The brand new pantomime Jamie and the Unicorn at the Gaiety Theatre in Ayr, hits all the big pantomime tropes – and hits them bang on – with a live performance that makes a smooth transfer to online viewing.
Listings: Mon 13 to Sun 19 December 2021
What’s on Edinburgh’s Stages this week…
With most Christmas productions up and running, the Playhouse and the Studio Theatre complete this years offer with new openings from the extreme ends of the Festive selection, at least in terms of size.
Hansel and Gretel
★★★★☆ Sweet treat
It’s back! Oh yes it is. After Covid sent the 2020 Brunton panto online, the regulars are once more live on stage before a very appreciative audience. Hansel and Gretel brings festive fun back to Musselburgh, bigger and better than ever.
Christmas Dinner
★★★★☆ Touchingly funny
Christmas Dinner may be something of a stopgap as this year’s Lyceum show, but it proves a success in its own right. Amusing, energetic, and wearing its considerable profundity lightly, it should appeal to the widest possible audience.
Sleeping Beauty
★★★★☆ Comforting
Familiar routines, eye-catching gimmicks and cheeky swagger are naturally present in Sleeping Beauty, this year’s pantomime at the King’s. And if something is unsurprisingly missing, it does pretty well in making up for it.
