Review: Jack and the Beanstalk at the Liverpool Everyman ****

This year’s Everyman Rock ‘n’ Roll panto comes with a content warning – for silliness, songs, glitter and water guns.

And if the physical glitter is mostly confined to Liam Tobin’s extravagant false eyelashes, there’s certainly plenty of silliness, a thumping soundtrack of songs and a traditional seasonal soaking on offer.

After a rocky couple of Christmas seasons around the time of Covid, with changes in personnel and storytelling emphasis (it all got a bit too serious and preachy for a while), the Everyman’s yuletide production has happily since re-discovered its groove.

Although this year there’s even more need to suspend disbelief than usual.

You expect tall tales at Christmas, and in literal terms surely none are taller than Jack and the Beanstalk – the story of a gullible lad who swaps the family cow for a bag of beans and finds they magically grow into the clouds.

Still, Chloe Moss’s left-field take on the fairy story manages to be even more out there. I’ve never taken acid, but I imagine this Jack and the Beanstalk is a bit like tuning in, turning on and dropping out into a trip where the familiar suddenly morphs into something discombobulating and very different.

Christmas shows in Liverpool City Region for 2025

Jack (first time ‘Rock ‘n’ Roller Malek Alkoni) lives and works with his mum Vera (Tobin, a marginally mismatched fake bosom and clearly having an absolute riot) at Cosmic Crystals where good-hearted Vera dispenses advice and Scouse sympathy along with the rose quartz and moonstone.

But Cosmic Crystals is in trouble because, as Adam Keast’s Fairy Spacecake bemoans, people are losing their belief in magic (cue a spot of Peter Pan-style audience participation) and he and his eager apprentice niece Jill (Amy Bastani) need to swoop in and save the day.

Their job is made doubly tricky with the arrival of self-aggrandising ‘spiritualist’ Alan Sucre – evidently metamorphosised from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker – a confidence trickster who woos lovelorn Vera into signing over her crystal empire.

Above: Adam Keast as Fairy Spacecake. Top: Zoe West's baddie Alan Sucre. Photos by Ellie Kurttz.

Zoe West, fast cornering the market in panto baddies, is in top form here, both in terms of boo-ability and guitar playing, even turning an accidental broken string to dramatic advantage. Separately, Theo Diedrick wins over the audience as Sucre’s conflicted sidekick Roginald.

As you might have gathered, this Jack and the Beanstalk initially bears little resemblance to the tried and tested tale, although a few of the recognisable parts of it do eventually turn up – there’s a ‘beanstalk’ of sorts (no plot spoilers), a goose that lays golden eggs and a fearsome giant who may or may not be real.

At some point, despite the story being set in a crystal healing shop, Elaine Hua Jones’s Daisy the cow also materialises. Playing a saxophone. That’s some trip.

Meanwhile designer Katie Scott’s hippie dippy Haight Ashbury vibe (albeit a Haight Ashbury which has collided with the wholesome world of children’s television – a frightening thought) is a colourfully cheery visual manifestation of the crazy plot.

This being the rock ‘n’ roll panto, it’s music that drives the action, and the cast - under Henry Brennan’s musical direction - rip-roar through a musical selection that goes from Prince’s Let’s Go Crazy to The Beatles’ Help by way of Lenny Kravitz, Eric Carmen/Celine Dion, Meatloaf, Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club (sung with emotion by Rebecca Levy’s Ruby) and K-pop super hit Golden.

Above: Liam Tobin as Vera and Rebecca Levy as Ruby. Photo by Ellie Kurttz.

A quartet of hedgehogs performing a close harmony Bohemian Rhapsody in the second half is arguably worth the ticket price alone, while before then interval there’s an all-too-brief sly nod to Chicago’s Cell Block Tango courtesy of Tobin’s Vera (snap, crackle, pop, sausage roll…chipsticks).

Kash Arshad, who previously directed an enjoyably punk-infused Oliver Twist at Storyhouse, gives the cast breathing space to do their thing and maintains a lively pace – although the opening scene could take some tightening.

And while the personable Keast is very adept at working the audience, and it’s true he has more stage time with the ‘dame’ here than in recent years, I’d also still like to see him back in more of a comedy double act.

But in essence, the musicianship is excellent, the characterisation is great, and the cast feel happily cohesive and collegiate.

A mention too for the terrific BSL interpreter Jude Mahon, whose lively signing on press night really felt like part of the action rather than an awkward addition.

Finally, something for Liverpool City Council to note. One of the biggest cheers of the night came at the mention of a wish for the return of free nighttime parking in town.