Beauty and the Beast from Mars - The Cornishman

Albeit for two nights only, it was great to see The Acorn in Penzance not only open but also packed – evidence perhaps of how much it has been missed in recent months – for Miracle Theatre's latest show, Beauty And The Beast From Mars.

From the moment Major Bunty Tankhurst's son Eric appears on stage in the shape of his alter ego, the super-egotistical, guitar-playing, rockin' an' rollin', snake-hipped Bobby Beauty, a pop star with 36 consecutive hits to his name who thinks only of himself, it is clear that what we are about to see is a pantomime like no other.

Not all that surprising considering that it is directed by Bill Scott and also written by him and Steve Clarke. An out of this world production, and one which is possibly the company's most technically adventurous yet, when its combination of video animation, projected backdrops, shadow puppets, music and movement, comes together as it should it is good. Paradoxically, when it doesn't, such are the ad-lib skills of its splendid cast, that it is even better.

Set in space, on a Mars where there are no bars, a tale which will have special appeal for anyone who has ever forgotten his or her PIN number, it is not only played superbly played by Tom Adams as the shocking and slippery as an electric eel Bobby Beauty, but also by everyone of its splendid spaced-out cast. Benjamin Dyson is the militant and maternal Major Bunty Tankhurst, surely the finest and most feisty female ever to have come out of Aldershot. Rebecca Rowe is Nurse Bumper, the National Health Service's answer to a soldier's prayer, while Catherine Lake is both the shrunken Professor Schadenfreude and the seductive Empress Bestiana of Mars. Dominic Power plays a TV announcer, while Sally Crooks is an animated alien.

While it could well be sub-titled Mars: The Musical, along with such songs as I Wanna Hold My Hand and Like I Love Me – there's even a CD of all the songs from the show – it also has all the ingredients, from excruciating jokes and deliciously irreverent royal gags to emerge as a wacky and wonderful pantomime.

Worth braving the weather for, Miracle Theatre's "Beauty and the Beast from Mars" is at the Princess Pavilion, Falmouth, Dec 23 and Dec 27-30, and at various venues in Cornwall in the New Year until February 3, 2011, at Perranporth Memorial Hall.