Flo White

• Malcolm Jack
• 15 December 2010

Last year’s Tron Theatre panto Ya Beauty and the Beast was an anarchic Weegie-style rehash of a popular fairytale that proved about as mindful of a coherent plot as Cinderella is of her shoes. If a formula ain’t broken, why fix it?

In Flo White, the traditional story of the pretty maiden with the jealously vengeful stepmother is blasted into space aboard the SS Pantoprise, for a deliciously madcap 130-minute muddle of mixed sci-fi movie references and cheeky pops at other Glasgow venues’ pantos, particularly The Pavilion’s (Soshy is ‘borrowed’ from their matinee of Aladdin).

Darren Brownlie is delightful as the mincing robot who just wants a hug, even if his cuddly routine with a toy bear is pitched in an oddly cutesy tone somewhere below the show’s recommended 5+ age threshold. The highpoint is the song and dance by hot boyband The Seven Sausage Suppers, thawed out after being cryogenically frozen so, as we’re frequently reminded, ‘they’ll remain young forever – like Take That.’

Tron Theatre, Glasgow, until Sat 8 Jan