Have you seen the JW3 panto? If the answer's 'Oh no I haven't!' it's time you did

Yes it’s a pantomime, but not as Brits know it, because this panto has been heavily doused in Yiddishkeit, and it’s all the richer for it judging from the audience’s reaction

By Brigit Grant December 20, 2023, 7:10 pm Edit

For more than four decades, Brigit Grant has covered news and celebrity exclusives. As Executive Editor (Features) and Editor of Life magazine, she combines award-winning journalism with a longstanding passion for animal welfare, particularly dogs.

Whaaat! Little Red Riding Hood is Jewish? It’s hard to imagine what the German-born Brothers Grimm would have made of that, but Nick Cassenbaum has taken some uproarious liberties with their fairytale to create Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Pig for JW3.

Yes it’s a pantomime, but not as Brits know it, because this panto has been heavily doused in Yiddishkeit, and it’s all the richer for it judging from the audience’s reaction.

Cassenbaum, who once wrote a school Purim spiel, has set this ‘once upon a time’, pre-Chanukah, in a north-west London shtetl that needs a new energy source because it’s being held to ransom by the Big Bad Pig.

Gemma Barnett as science geek Red Riding Hood, © Jane Hobson.

First up is likeable Red (Gemma Barnett), who is joined by her mother Mrs Hoodman, aka the Dame, for a cheekily Jewish rendition of Dead or Alive’s Spin Me Around...

“You spin me right ‘round, baby, right ‘round Like a dreidl, baby, right ‘round, ‘round, ‘round.”

To add to the joy, Mrs Hoodman is dressed as a dreidel in a neon gown with a strategically placed ‘nun’ for laughs that come courtesy of Debbie Chazen as the bolshy balaboosta. In a candy-floss pink beehive, Chazen does a magnificent job setting the tone and few dames could wear a Kosher Kingdom apron with such panache, make bottles of Palwin magically appear or flatulate so inoffensively – and she has a lot of wind.

Debbie Chazen as Dame Mother Hoodman. Picture: Jane Hobson

But that’s the magic of Jewish women, and you realise the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree when Red’s boobah (mother of Mrs H) arrives. This boobah is a force of nature who can shimmy down drainpipes and climb balconies in her dressing gown.

In a housecoat by sparkling seamstress Becky-Dee Trevenen, this is Tiago Fonseca as bubbah. Picture:Jane Hobson

That Cassenbaum and director Abigail Anderson cast Portuguese acrobat Tiago Fonseca as Red’s grannie is a stroke of genius and makes absolutely no sense, but his suppleness schmeared with schmaltz is a crowd pleaser.

Pretty much everything and everyone in this off-the-wall production pleases, and that very much includes Aussie comedian Josh Glanc as the Big Bad Pig who hankers after grandmothers, but only as fuel to feed his burners. The Pig lives in a mansion in Hampstead – where else? – and the twist in his curly tale is that he keeps the wolf from the original story as his furry pet.

Josh Glanc as The Big Bad Pig. pic by Jane Hobson.

Lauren Silver as The Wolf. pic: Jane Hobson.

As said wolf, Lauren Silver has irresistible energy and delivers a star turn among many star turns, including a cameo by a puppet rat taxi driver (Tracy Bargate). There is much to recommend this first attempt at Jewish panto, as a chat with an OAP and an eight-year-old revealed during the interval. But that enjoyment only increased in the second half and hit dizzy heights then when we all learnt the truly daft words to the unforgettable anthem – Smelly Bum. Cassenbaum wanted to create a panto much like the ones he saw as a kid and he has. Only this panto is for ‘us’ and he nailed it in time for Chanukah. Thankfully the lights are still shining.

Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Pig runs until 7 January. Tickets: http://jw3.org.uk/panto