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The Mummy – The Panto
by Mark Taylor

Review

 

Cast Details:

Professor Pottering

Chris Argles

Rose Garden

Tanya Allison

Ardet Bay

Richard Lloyd

Muk-Itup

Steve North

Kok-Itup

Chris Strachan

Mrs Beryl Pie’nmash

Luke Argles

Sir Ponsonby Bottywipe; Captain Titanic

Tim Young

Police Inspector

Lisa Lloyd

Police Sergeant

Mike Brown

Dribbles

Mark Young

Stewards on SS. Disaster-At-Sea

Lucy-Ann Martin

Stewards on SS. Disaster-At-Sea

Jane Simeone

Colonel Willoughby-Balls

Neil Grew

Private Droppem

Kimberley Argles

Colostomy Jane

Nicky Greene

Sir Armitage Shanks

David Cole

Miss Stephanie Sneezy-Knickers

Penny Payne

Miss Betty Botty-Burp

Julie Wilson

I. Rippemov

Tina Poole

Imhotep

Chris Blakeney

Technical Crew Details:

Directed by
Mark Taylor
Prompt

Rosie Martin

Technical Co-Ordinator

Simon Poole

Stage Manager

Kevin Boot

Stage Crew

Martin Coburn

Stage Crew

Jon Stayte

Lighting

Maria New

Lighting

Jonathan Wales

Sound; Paintshop

Kathy Dawes

Wardrobe

Vanessa Buck

Wardrobe

Sheila Bird

Shipwright

Steve North

Paintshop

Richard Lloyd

Paintshop

Chris Argles

Box Office

Tim Young

Box Office

Julia Young

Photography

Mark Hobbs

Band Details:

Piano and Keyboards

Mark Taylor

Bass

Simeon Dawes

Guitar

Richie Honeyman

Drums

Kevin Gibbons

Vocal Director

Tanya Allison

Choreography

Kimberley Argles

 

Reviewed by Donald Madgwick for ‘The Croydon Advertiser’.

“Oh, for Tut’s sake!” exclaims the villain when things aren’t going his way in this offbeat original pantomime. He’s an Egyptian, you understand, called Ardet Bey, and he’s trying to rule the universe through the agency of a 3,000 year old Mummy called Imhotep, who is supposedly Evil Incarnate but in fact is as camp as a Boy Scout’s jamboree.

The script is written and directed by Mark Taylor, who is also found at the keyboards of a four-piece ensemble.

Its characters tend to be endowed with earthy names like Sir Ponsonby Bottywipe, and Colostomy Jane, but let’s not go into that.

Richard Lloyd is well cast as Ardet Bey, giving a performance of lip-smacking relish, the Compleat Villain, embellishing his expansive, conscienceless wrong-doing with a vein of treacherous orientalism.

His sidekicks, filling the generic slot of brokers’ men, are given a certain idiotic panache by Steve North and Chris Strachan, respectively Muk-Itup and Kok-Itup, with Tina Poole bringing some glamour to the gang as I. Rippemov.

But it’s Brits to the rescue. Luke Argles is the Dame, Mrs Beryl Pie’nmash, who sails through the show with huge good humour, employing a sort of yapping falsetto reminiscent of the Monty Python women. Chris Argles and Tanya Allison are the well-named Professor Pottering and his museum assistant Rose Garden.

Other English stalwarts include Tim Young as a self-satisfied Sir Ponsonby, Neil Grew, barking orders in Empire-building style as Col. Willoughby-Balls; and a sprightly Kimberley Argles as his batman Private Droppem. She, though, hardly the most important character on view, is the shows nearest approach to a Principal Boy, falling in love with the graceful museum assistant.

Nicky Greene, as Colostomy Jane, seems to have wandered in from the Wild West to the Middle East, while Penny Payne and Julie Wilson are quintessentially English as a pair of elderly tourists. But the real scene stealer is Chris Blakeney, a Mummy of spirit and wit, with the distilled resignation of three millennia spent in a sarcophagus.

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