REVIEW: Jack and the Beanstalk at Durham Gala

Jack and the Beanstalk

Durham Gala

Until Wednesday 31 December 2025

Written by Gary Kitching

Directed by Jacob Anderton

Musical Director & Arrangements: Gabrielle Ball

Choreographer: Helen West

Costume Designer: Emily Baxendale

The pantomime season has begun and the Durham Gala have a family friendly show that has many of the traditional elements that make up a good panto wrapped around consistent storytelling in a well paced show that will keep the youngsters happy.

Like many theatres, the Gala has kept the same team together for a few seasons and they are hitting the right notes with many of the decisions being made. Jude Nelson is, once again, in the comic role - this time as Muddles. Introductions are kept short and sweet and this goes down to the expected greeting when they enter the stage. The lack of a protracted set up was a sign of things to come as the show feels like it moves at a brisk pace. Jude is friendly, fun and Gary Kitching's script means that she doesn't punch down with her jokes.

Quickly we are introduced to tired Jack (Kieron Michael) who keeps dropping off asleep through out the show, and his mother Mrs Tinkler (Sarah Bulmer) who runs the dairy in Consett that has fallen on hard times. She sacks Muddles and entrusts Jack to sell their cow. In a subplot, Muddles is training to become a fairy godmother and has already learnt how to speak to animals, thus we discover Bronwen the cow is Welsh. Jack doesn't make it to the market and sells it to Prof Hangclaw (Adam Donaldson) and his daughter Bridget (Lucy Davis) in return for fake magic beans. The Prof is the closest that the show has to a baddie for the kids to boo at.

When Bronwen escapes she meets up with a cow herd and decides to hide as a pink pony. This leads to one of the musical highlights of the show as Susie Barrett sings a Chappell Roan mash up. The other big number was act one closing number Defying Gravity which left a smile on the audience as they headed off for their interval ice creams.

This is a gentle panto that sticks to storytelling rather than having the title as a vague theme. The youngsters were keen to take part and the cast made the audience feel a part of the show. There are a number of traditional panto elements like a messy scene and the community singing at the end. Having said that, the messy scene was probably the one element that seemed to be there for the sake of it. It just consisted of chucking glasses of coloured liquid at Jack who fell over at random moments. 

One of the better decisions was to include a live band, which kept the energy levels up. The small adult ensemble cast danced through the show, there's no kids on stage in this show.

Jack and the Beanstalk is a safe fun show with a likeable cast.

Review: Stephen Oliver

Tickets:

https://galadurham.co.uk/galapost/jack-and-the-beanstalk/   

Accessible performances:

They have a number of accessible performances of Jack and the Beanstalk including a British Sign Language (BSL) interpreted performance on Saturday 6 December, 2.00pm and a captioned performance on Saturday 13 December, 6.30pm.

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