We do a lot of panto. Last year I think we did three. Out of all the panto we see, my favourite, by far, is the panto at Stratford. East. Writers/directors, Vikki Stone and Tonderai Munyevu have perfected the panto game: Jokes, sexual innuendo, great songs, pop songs the audience can join in with, characters you warm to and can root for, an evil character who is, ultimately, redeemed.
You leave the theatre satisfied because Stone and Munyevu fulfil the panto genre – and then some.
Some panto writers restrict their adult content to sex, others, touch on politics. But Stone’s and Munyevu’s work is always replete with Left leaning targeted attacks against the system.
This year’s story is ‘Mama Goose’. A good fairy, WTF, Â tells us the bad fairy, BFF, is on the hunt for her goose who lays golden eggs. Then we’re introduced to Mama Goose, a middle-aged, brazen African women, who lives with her son and their panto sized geese in a flat/house in Stratford.
The tax inspector, in a pin-stripe suit, slinks in and informs Mama Goose she’s being billed for her geese’s honking. The geese are taken away. The good fairy, WTF, appears and says she has a gift that will solve all of Mama Goose’s money problems. In flies Gary the goose, a white Cockney geezer, replete with traditional flat cap. He begins laying golden eggs and Mama Goose is in bliss. She wishes her son Jack away, and in love, and wishes for herself: youth and fame. Not the good fairy, but the bad fairy, comes forward to fulfil these wishes. All Mama Goose has to do is hand over Gary, which she does.
Jack falls in love with a being the evil witch has created, AI Jill, and Mama Goose is transformed – or at least she thinks she is transformed (all that has happened is a wardrobe change and a perception switch, which says much about the beauty myth). Mama Goose now lays back on her plastic wrap white sofa and spends her days, social media happy. Jack is distraught at how his mother has sold out.
The love-story between Jack and Jill is rapid moving, sweet. They meet, and click, Circuits in overwhelm.
Gary the goose is now a factory goose, hooked to machines to produce golden egg after golden egg. The good fairy has been entrapped too, and is the egg collector.
Because panto morality is fairy-tale morality, and is not about the saving of the world, but the saving of the family, the race is now on to save Gary and to save Mama Goose’s soul. The three: Mama Goose, Jack and Jill, meet at a spaceship owned by a ghost-like Elon Musk (more anti-capitalist jokes) and after a few pitfalls, they fly off to Gooseland to rescue Gary.
Jokes: There are a plethora of physical and word play jokes; though the word-play and play on word jokes dominate. There are good jokes and cringe-worthy jokes but those, too, are part of the panto tradition.
A lot of the songs (music by Robert Hyman and lyrics by Hyman and Stone) are spoken word and they are great in themselves. I would have preferred some songs with a stronger musical beat. But with that, ends my niggling dissatisfaction.
The directing and the acting – especially of the good fairy and AI Jill – are particularly fine. The good fairy is given the mannerisms (pouting, chin out etc.) of a young street-sharp teenager. The evil witch seems to relish her part, as does Mama Goose.
Before we read Judith Butler and became conscious of the multiduity of gender roles, and long before the modern flow of gender fluidity, there was panto.
The show ends with a song  I feel I have heard before. It may be a Stone/Hyman signature song. The players sing a song descrying the acquiring of ‘stuff’. The refrain line goes: ‘Family is everything. And dancing is free.’ It makes me feel ebullient and consider deleting my Temu account. The feeling doesn’t last but that it existed is a marvel in itself.
Panto, when done well, as this is, appeals across all ages. With ‘Mama Goose’ Stratford East has another winner on its hands.
Until: January 3rd 2026
Book, lyrics & co-director: Vikki Stone
Book & co-director: Tonderai Munyeu
Music & co-writer (lyrics): Robert Hyman
Set & costume designer: Steward J. Chalesworth
Cast includes: Duane Gooden, Che Walker, Marcellus Whyte, Charlie Cameron, Ellie Seaton and Mya Fox Scott.
Photo credit: Mark Senior