Beauty and the Beast, Wolverhampton Grand Theatre Review

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Sat 09 Nov 2024 - Sat 04 Jan 2025

Over the past few years, Wolverhampton Grand Theatre has developed its own pantomime and it now has a winning formula. Penned by Ian Adams and Tam Ryan, who also stars in the show, Beauty and the Beast is a family-friendly spectacular.

The duo have decades of experience in comedy and panto and they know just what an audience wants. As Dame and Belle’s mum Madam Fifi Fou-Fou and Belle’s brother Joey, Adams and Ryan pile on the laughs.



There’s plenty of slapstick humour which is naughty but not blue - not least a daft scene in which the guys set out to clean the Beast’s palace and succeed only in creating havoc, and a striptease routine from Adams.

There’s the essential audience interaction with Ryan’s Joey calling out for general responses and picking out individuals to be the butt-end of some of the jokes. Plus they’re thinking on their feet as they’ve already added a Greg Wallace gag into the lines.

Olivia Mitchell brings charm to the role of Belle. She is instantly likeable, has a great rapport with her fellow cast and can deliver a beautiful tune or two. Tom Lowe is a tortured Beast who is keen to win Belle’s heart and return to his former handsome self and who also gives a great turn as a rock star, belting out the melodrama with Meatloaf’s Bat out of Hell.

The show is heavily influenced by Disney's Beauty and the Beast and it cleverly picks up the Gaston figure who brings so much of the humour to the film. So Timothy Lucas’s Bilston (see what they’ve done here?) brings lashings of daftness to the show. He is smarmy and self-adoring as he swaggers around the stage believing he is God’s gift to women and particularly Belle. You can’t help but love his self-delusion as he struts and sings Eye of the Tiger while flexing his biceps.

The Beauty and the Beast storyline has an added dimension with the action also being portrayed as a battle between good and evil personified by the fairy godmother-like Angelica and the baddie Gladius. Jarnéia Richard-Noel brings plenty of magic dust to her Angelica but it has to be said Giant’s Gladius falls a bit flat. There’s more to panto than standing on stage saying the lines especially when you’re the evil genius – and we need that extra nastiness which plays up to the audience who like nothing more than to boo the baddie.



Panto though is about more than the individuals and this show delivers in all the elements of spectacle. The stage looks fabulous with Mark Walters’ set and costume designs packed full of colour and imagination. They are also hugely benefited by digital sets by Pixellux, Nina Dunn and Matt Brown which can change the backdrop in a second and are alive with fabulous images which catapult us between locations.

Directed by Andrew Lynford, the show never falters and the ensemble cast does justice to Natalie Bennyworth’s fun choreography which keeps the stage filled with energy and high kicks.

Grand theatre CEO and artistic director Adrian Jackson returns as musical supervisor and the live (but not visible) band give plenty of gusto to a range of specially arranged songs including Nature Boy, Roar, Pure Imagination and You Can’t Stop the Beast (see what they’ve done there too?)

The Grand this year celebrates its 130th anniversary and for all of those decades, its pantomime has been at the centre of its programming. From someone who went every year as a child, I can vouch for a tiny bit of its pedigree and this year’s show is certainly continuing that great tradition with a pantomime which will tickle all fancies and dazzle.

Beauty and the Beast play at Wolverhampton Grand until 4 January, see here for information and tickets.

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