BWW Reviews: MIRACLE ON 34 PARNIE STREET, Tron Theatre, Glasgow, December 3 2014

It goes without saying that British pantomimes fall into the "camp" category but none quite so much as Miracle on 34 Parnie Street! Set in department store TJ Confuse (funnily enough, the theatre is just a few doors down from TJ Hughes) the manager is horrified when the most suitable candidate for the Santa Claus vacancy is a woman. Well, Johnny McKnight in drag to be more precise.

Loosely following the plot of Miracle on 34th Street, Kristine Kringle is accused of not being the real Santa and is put on trial. Unsuspecting members of the audience were brought onstage to sit as the jury and things got a lot more "panto" in the Act 2. While the first act could never possibly be described as straight theatre, there was a lot more "oh no he's not!" in the second half.

The pantomime favoured original songs over the usual chart hits and they went down an absolute treat with the Glasgow audience. My personal musical highlight was a song about shopping in the infamous Savoy Centre. The humour, as with all pantos, is very regional and was bang on. The script is fantastic and the improv was very well done- I was genuinely in pain by the end from laughing so hard.

This is probably the first panto I have seen where the adults are possibly enjoying it more than the kids. While everything is age appropriate and the inneundo will go over the heads of the younger ones, a lot of references have been added just for the grown ups. While this is the first panto I have seen this season I feel confident in recommending this as the one you absolutely must see in Glasgow!

Miracle on 34 Parnie Street runs at The Tron until January 4th.

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