Mother Goose, review: Sir Ian delivers eye-rubbing wow-factor as the greatest of panto dames

Ian McKellen’s Mother Goose arrives on stage in a headscarf and curlers, fake bosom protruding, tottering as if under the weight of make-up, and pretend-walking a fluffball dog on a lead, to a huge round of applause. He departs more than two hours later in a storm of confetti, having crooned, tap-danced and even snogged for our delectation, to a deserved standing ovation.

Having made news, and theatrical history, as our oldest Dane – following up a full-strength Hamlet last year at Windsor with a more diluted dance version in Edinburgh this August – the 83-year-old Sir Ian (camply known among devotees as “Serena”, a nickname tartly dropped in here) now lets his hair down and has a ball as, it’s thought, Britain’s oldest panto dame.

He played Widow Twankey in an Old Vic Aladdin circa 2004. But he was in his 60s then. This time, valiantly bringing panto into the West End, then off on a tour until Easter, isn’t he literally risking busting a gut, costume-changing a go-go, delivering buckets of sauce and even a round of Shakespeare? That’s all part of the eye-rubbing wow-factor. The deluxe turn continues a tradition stretching back to fabled music-hall wiz Dan Leno. Equally, the man known to millions as Gandalf (duly joshed about) is reflecting on his stardom, and his roots, too.

“It’s the Grand Theatre in Bolton and I’m eight years old,” he confides in one break-out moment, in which he’s somehow in-character and yet not. “I’m watching my first pantomime and I’m entranced. I wanted to be up here, the centre of attention.” That seriousness is punctured by his warbling, awfully, Annie’s Tomorrow, but the point is effectively made. This foray represents a coming full circle; a love-letter to what counts.

In a storyline studded with meta irony, his character, Caroline, co-runs a bonkers animal sanctuary in the defunct Debenhams on Oxford Street (smashing sets all round, with sharp, topical barbs about the trashed economy and the energy crisis).

This gruffly northern matriarch, her hubby Vic (radiant, effortlessly funny Scouser John Bishop) and son Jack (affable Oscar Conlon-Morrey), get rich thanks to golden-egg laying Cilla Quack (a fantastically on-song Anna-Jane Casey). But, as part of a cosmic battle, Caroline is tempted by the whip-cracking bad fairy Malignia (Karen Mavundukure) to wade into the pool of dreams and fulfil that fame-lust. Cue extravagantly attired ego-mania at the Oscars, culminating in McKellen ludicrously prancing to Right Said Fred’s I’m Too Sexy and the belated realisation that true happiness lies with those you love – a message sealed by an audience singalong to Sweet Caroline.

Sure, it's flimsier stuff than the best, time-honoured fairy-tale classics and, albeit witty, the script, by Bishop’s fellow Liverpudlian Jonathan Harvey, indulges in copious innuendo, along with in-jokes about Derek Jacobi and Judi Dench. But offsetting that tot-befuddling vibe, the whole shiny shebang, directed by Cal McCrystal, is delivered with such warm-hearted zest, festooned with feelgood pop-hit and musicals-derived numbers, it’s hard to imagine anyone failing to benefit from taking a gander. And if there’s a poignant take-home message, it’s that where McKellen’s younger self was the child of repressive times, the mother of all liberated kisses at the end (him, Bishop) flags that the world changed, for the better. If this is McKellen’s swansong, what a happy and glorious way to go.

At the Duke of York’s, Thurs to Jan 29; then tours to April 1; mothergooseshow.co.uk