Review: THE PHANTOM RASPBERRY BLOWER OF OLD LONDON TOWN, St James Theatre Studio, October 30 2015

It's almost fifty years on since Spike Milligan had one of his most Spike Milliganish ideas - a tale of a Jack The Ripper-like fiend who terrorised the aristocracy of late-Victorian London by blowing raspberries. You couldn't make it up... but Spike could. In the 70s, Ronnie Barker got involved and The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town became a short series within The Two Ronnies, filmed with those high BBC production values and packed with references to popular culture - Sherlock Holmes, Music Hall, horror and plenty more. Lee Moone has now resurrected the infamous Phantom in a stage adaptation that is set to tour the UK in 2016 bringing its menace to unsuspecting audiences nationwide.

Set up as an old-fashioned radio play (complete with BBC mics and Jessica Bowles's splendid sound effects) we don't quite get the Phantom stalking the streets of Westminster (although some fine back projections help). Nevertheless, the radio show format does allow plenty of opportunity for quick changes, silly voices and in-joke corpsing that only adds to the mayhem.

Jodie Jacobs impresses with accents drawn from all strata of society and sings a very naughty song about her er... fan, that would have gone down a storm at Wilton's Music Hall in 1899. David Boyle and Steve Elias hold the plot together as the two hapless policemen with the support of James Petherick as a very BBC-like Announcer (who also does a turn as a Frankie Howerd inspired character too - it's probably best not to ask why). Lee Moone himself ducks in and out of the action in a range of preposterous costume props.

It's all terribly, terribly silly of course, with a cavalcade of double entendres of which Finbarr Saunders would be proud and much that triggers happy memories of Saturday night telly when there were but three channels and no videos - so we watched as families, indeed, as a nation. At two hours with an interval, it's just a bit long though, the format wearing a little thin as we wait the mystery guest scheduled to play the Phantom as he gets his comeuppance. More perhaps could be made of Matthew Freeman's fine piano playing with a couple more Gilbert and Sullivan inspired songs to break up the dialogue. The furious momentum generated in the first few scenes would be maintained at, say, 90 minutes all-through rather than dissipated at the interval.

No doubt changes such as these will be pondered before the show goes out on the road and when it does - beware! You have been warned that The Phantom is abroad on the streets of England once more!

This premiere performance of The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town was held in aid of The Prince's Trust. The show continues at St James Theatre Studio until 1 November.

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