**Emerald Theatre • 17 Dec ‘25 - 4 Jan ‘25**

If there’s been anything guaranteed to get me in the festive mood over the last few years, it has been my annual pilgrimage to the TuckShop Christmas Panto which has now become as much a part of seasonal festivities as the Boxing Day hangover. I am clearly not alone in looking forward to this annual theatrical treat as the press night audience was filled with so many social media influencers that I feared Instagram would probably have been forced to shut down had the theatre roof unexpectedly caved in. Thankfully as one of the West Ends newest theatres, this was very unlikely to happen.

The TuckShop Panto itself is now in it’s fifth year and this level of popularity has been well earned given they have previously delighted their audiences with such unique and hilarious drag takes on classics like Peter Pan (2024) and Sleeping Beauty (2023). This year it is the turn of Snow White to get the TuckShop treatment. Many of the cast remain intact from director Christopher D Clegg’s previous forays into panto, including Drag Race UK season 3 queen Kitty Scott Claus (as Fairy Hanny), series 4’s ‘internationally ignored’ (the panto’s words, not mine) Yshee Black, (as The Magic Mirror) and series 5’s Kate Butch (as The Huntsthem) who this year finds themselves also promoted to scriptwriter, sharing the writing credits with Crudi Dench and Eleanor Mason. Other familiar drag faces include Ophelia Love (seemingly forever destined to be comedically cast as Villager No. 4), Drag King Oliver Clothezoff, (The Prince), a previous contestant on the Great British Bake Off. There’s also TikTok star Sophia Stardust joining the cast as The Page, Tayris Mongardi plays the panto’s titular character of Snow White fresh from her appearance on the latest series of Drag Race UK, and Tiana Biscuit….well, she’s here to play Tiana Biscuit… and she does it oh so well!

Completing this stella line up is season 6 winner Kyran Thrax who, as the Wicked Queen, has clearly found the role they seemed almost born to play, looking resplendent in a suitably glamourous costume whilst acting delightfully evil from the moment she enters the stage to the sound of Britney Spear’s Toxic. In an hilarious contrast to the many impressive costumes on display, Yshee Black appears throughout dressed only in a chroma-key green figure-hugging lycra body suit, explaining her costume is actually “going to be added in post-production!”

Casting such an incredible collection of drag artists isn’t the only impressive decision made for this year’s production however, as when budgets are tight it makes sense to find a venue that can do a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of the visual spectacle itself, and the choice to use the Emerald Theatre certainly achieved that in spades. It’s velvet-clad Art Deco-inspired interior, cabaret style seating and a stage that already looked as if it had been designed specifically for such magical experiences to unfold, meant the wobbly cardboard sets of old had gone. Cardboard was still being put to good use however, and was responsible for creating some suitably shonky props like daggers and iphones, the conceit here being that once Drag Race UK winner Kyran Thrax had been paid, there was very little budget left for props.

Whilst it’s no secret that the slightly rough-around-the-edge approach has always been one of the TuckShop panto’s charms over the years, I had no idea that this would extend to a cardboard cutout labubu! (“Oh Yes I Did!”…“Oh no I didn’t!”) This is just one of the many pop-cultural references of 2025 to be mercilessly lampooned throughout, along with any number of rewritten lyrics sung over recognisably crowd-pleasing songs, including Scissor Sisters Filthy/Gorgeous, those particular two words being the most succinct way I can think of to sum up this extremely entertaining night!

There are a lot of tongue in cheek asides made by the cast, often about the cast, most of which I assume had been scripted, but you can be sure that as soon as you notice an extra twinkle in any of the cast’s eye, a disarmingly barbed ad-lib is sure to follow that will not only get the audience roaring with laughter, but is just as likely, and probably just as intentionally, intended to try and make their fellow cast members corpse, and any opportunity the cast see to ‘go rogue’ from the script is often taken without hesitation and to hilarious effect.

With things designed to be as anarchically chaotic as the TuckShop panto invariably is, it can sometimes be tricky to pace the action in order to make such frenetic comedy engage with the same impact throughout, and whilst I found myself feeling things could have been a little sharper after the intermission, the second half did come with its own secret weapon, that being the appearance of Tiana Biscuit who, having made quite an entrance to ‘Get The Party Started’, was clearly on a mission to do just that with a performance that threatened to upstage all those around her, and whilst she might have sometimes appeared a little bit ‘woolly’ on her lines, (her occasionally missed cue comically mined for maximum comedic effect), there was no mistaking hers as being one of the better singing voices of the collected ensemble.

For me however, the holy trinity of tonight’s performance remains the consistently entertaining Kate Butch, Kyran Thrax and Yshee Black who more than delivered on character, comedic chaos and the usual top-quality ad-libs. Now… pass the stuffing, I’m ready for my Christmas Dinner! (“Oh no you’re not!”)

★★★★