Review: WEANS IN THE WOOD, Macrobert Arts Centre

This year at the Macrobert celebrates 20 years of Johnny McKnight writing the annual pantomime. Appearing in the show alternating years, in 2025, he has written, directed, and is starring in Weans in the Wood.

Magic Merlina (Johnny McKnight) runs a magic school and every year has a duel with Sheriff of Stirling-Stella-Ham (Robert Jack). However, this year, her magic wand has been stolen by Little Red (Dani Heron), setting Merlina on a quest to retrieve it so that she's prepared for her battle. 

This performance of Weans in the Wood suffered terribly from a lacklustre audience. There’s a great opening number at the top of the show, switching out the lyrics for “Hot To Go” with P-A-N-T-O but it didn’t get the appreciation it deserved. Audience interaction was forced (quite literally, with an extremely reluctant audience member practically dragged on stage) and it seemed nobody could remember the cues for call and response.

There are some truly terrific performances from Johnny McKnight and Dani Heron who valiantly try to get some kind of response and have wonderful comedic timing. Heron’s Little Red is a plucky Cockney with the best lines in the show. McKnight’s dame is always a joy to watch with some brilliant pop culture references thrown in.

Kara Swinney’s Gretel is not quite the hero that we want, and her unrequited love for Hansel doesn’t hit quite as hard as it should. She’s a difficult character to connect with, and its only towards the end when Hansel gives a touching speech about their friendship that you start to warm to her. Helen McAlpine’s Hansel doesn’t seem to connect with the younger members of the audience and her gags don’t appeal to the older ones.

The show looks great thanks to Jennie Loof’s costume design and Karen Tennent’s set design. This performance also suffered from some sound issues; one of the tracks based on a song from Burlesque, had the lyrics changed to something fitting to the story- but you couldn’t make out a word of it. 

There’s a lot to like about Weans in the Wood so when the jokes don’t land and the interaction is so flat it becomes quite a frustrating watch. The audience are such a huge part of panto so the lukewarm response and visibly bored children really impacted the evening. 

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