Review: DICK!, Leicester Square Theatre, December 17 2015

Christmas favourite Dick! is back in the Leicester Square Theatre (until 30 December) for a third time having gone upstairs (if not upmarket) presented now in the Main House after its 2012 and 2013 sojourns in the Lounge. It's an adult panto, so there's plenty of swearing - poor Dave (or is it Tabitha?) The Cat gets another fourth wall breaking verbal pounding from the audience - and there are some very naughty (and very funny) jokes, with puns and double entendres to burn.

Though there's clearly been a bit more investment in sets and costumes, writer-director Stuart Saint and his gang of over-the-top performers really trade in laughs and songs and there's plenty of both to go round. Everyone is having a fine time onstage, even if the bitching and backbiting never stops! I enjoyed Paula Masterton's wonderful singing as Fairy Bell-End (see what I mean) and Rachael Born was very funny as Alice Fitznicely. Queen of Soho once again was Dusty O, whose Sofonda Cox (really!) spent most of the time in conversation with the house, a fine cabaret turn played to its strengths.

Because it's crude and rude in places (but never proper nasty) its 18+ warning on the door is well-earned, but there's a lot of affection in this show - for Soho, for old style Drag Queen acts, for jolly jokes and japes and for each other, as the cast corpse, go off-script and generally knockabout for all their worth. Good, solid, but not quite wholesome, fun!

God help a tourist from abroad who wanders in not knowing what this British tradition of panto is all about!

Photo Steve Ullathorne.