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Wee liberties: Beauty and The Beast: A Horny Love Story at Charing Cross Theatre

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It may not be a tale as old as time, but it’s still the same old story, almost, with Beauty and the Beast: A Horny Love Story currently playing at the Charing Cross Theatre .  As the title suggests, this is not family holiday entertainment, but neither is it all gay gore. And a surprisingly large number of clever gags, a gorgeous-looking production, costumes, and an ensemble make for a classy night out with the occasional lashing of sluttiness.  It’s been a while since I have seen an adults-only panto. Like many things at the theatre—ticket prices, opening nights, age of social media influencers—things have changed. Happily, things have changed for the better here. The show focuses on assembling an excellent cast. Elaborate costumes by Robert Draper and David Shields’ set pieces help give this adult panto a touch of class. There are the usual lewd jokes and a quick flash of buttocks.   The setting of the story is in the northernmost village of Scotland, Lickmanochers. Not...

Last look: Sign of the Times

Maybe it is the wrong time to be making light of long-term unemployment (particularly amongst those over fifty and those under twenty-five), but there was something both amusing and depressing about Tim Firth's Sign of the Times, which closed on Saturday night. It is a pity that it didn't find and audience, but maybe a play about unemployment, decline of industries, the loss of ambition or that hideous poster (opposite) just put people off. Well at least there was a respectable audience there to see it off the West End.


The play starts out as a story between Frank (Matthew Kelly), a veteran sign writer and Alan (Gerard Kearns), a work experience student. The tables are turned in the second half when three years later Frank finds himself unemployed and it is Alan who is climbing the executive junior deputy leader trainee at a large electrical superstore. The performances by Kelly and Kearns were funny and engaging and it is hard not to like a characters that wax lyrical about pita bread (always a favourite snack of mine).

The play is based on an earlier one act version of the play, which possibly explains how the two halves do not really gel with each other, and the temptation to leave at the end of the first half. Perhaps running the two together without an intermission and sending the punters home by 9pm so they can go home and think about their careers might work in future...

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