Jack and His Giant Stalk review – grown-up pantomime and music hall excess at Brick Lane
★★★★ Served with dinner and wine in a converted church, Brick Lane Music Hall’s January pantomime leans into innuendo, excess and the stubborn pleasures of music hall tradition.
Pantomime in late January can sound like a category error. Christmas is over, resolutions are wobbling, and most theatres have moved briskly on to more serious business. Brick Lane Music Hall has never been much interested in the calendar. Music hall exists slightly out of time, and a grown-up panto served with a three-course dinner and wine, after Christmas, feels less eccentric here than entirely appropriate.
The venue sets the tone before a line is spoken. Housed in a converted Victorian church in Silvertown, Brick Lane Music Hall looks less like a conventional theatre than a space that has gradually accumulated stories. Hanging flowers, hand-painted signs, costume fragments, dresses draped where pews once were, and a curiously watchful stuffed bear family all contribute to the sense that the building itself has been dressed for the occasion. You eat well, you are poured generously, and by the time the show begins, you are already part of the room.
That atmosphere is no accident. Brick Lane Music Hall grew out of Vincent Hayes’ belief that music hall could survive by moving with the times rather than embalming itself. What began in the back room of a Bethnal Green pub, with a stage made of beer crates, became a venue where food, drink and performance remain inseparable. The ethos still shapes the experience: this is theatre that expects you to settle in.
Written and directed by Lucy Hayes, Jack and His Giant Stalk is a knowingly cheeky reworking of the familiar fairy tale, relocated to the unapologetically named town of Loosebottom. Jack Trott and his family are facing eviction at the hands of Poison Ivy and the Giant’s Wife, who have quietly raised the rent to fund an all-inclusive holiday to Magaluf. It is not subtle, and it is not meant to be. The script understands that pace and confidence matter more than elegance.
Josh Benson plays Jack with an easy physical assurance, combining slapstick, juggling and song without forcing charm. Samantha McNeil’s Jill brings energy and clarity, grounding the action when it risks drifting into chaos. But this is Brick Lane Music Hall, and the centre of gravity lies elsewhere.
Andrew Robley’s Dame Fanny Trott dominates proceedings through sheer persistence. Costume changes arrive at a relentless pace – eighteen in total – each one more structurally ambitious than the last. The effect is cumulative rather than refined, and that excess is the point. Alongside him, Vincent Hayes appears as Willy Trott, interrupting scenes, ad-libbing, thanking the kitchen staff mid-show and ignoring the script whenever it suits him. The cast adjust visibly, recalibrating timing and rhythm, and the audience is allowed to enjoy the instability. This is music hall as a living form, not a preserved one.
Elsewhere, Jack Pallister’s Spirit of the Beans – a fairy whose effectiveness improves with alcohol – provides one of the evening’s more inspired comic ideas, leaning into camp without tipping into parody. Lucy Reed’s Daisy the Cow combines strong vocals with comic confidence, while Charlotte Fage and Hayley-Jo Whitney form an enjoyably scheming villainous pairing, balancing glamour with physical comedy.
Visually, the production is smart about its limits. The stage is compact, but painted scenery and choreography create depth and momentum. A rope and ladder stand in for the beanstalk; suggestion does the work of spectacle. It is a reminder that pantomime does not require scale so much as conviction.
All photos by Lucy Hayes Photography
Not every joke lands, and there are moments – particularly involving Viagra – where repetition tests patience. But Brick Lane Music Hall has never promised restraint. What it offers instead is warmth, generosity and the sense of being looked after.
By the time dessert plates are cleared and the final number rolls around, the show has achieved something valuable in the depths of winter: it has made an evening feel fuller than it otherwise might have been. If pantomime after Christmas feels strange, so does music hall. Both have endured for exactly the same reason.
The show runs at Brick Lane Music Hall until 7 March.
Tickets:
Evening show with three course dinner and dancing – £75.00 per person
Matinee show with afternoon tea – £75.00 per person
Address: 443 North Woolwich Road, London, E16 2DA
Website: https://www.bricklanemusichall.co.uk/
Elena Leo is the Culture & Lifestyle Editor of Ikon London Magazine.
