Come back Twink, all is forgiven! Deprived of their leading lady, Soky and Dustin are pitted against a real prima donna, the baddie Max von Blowoff, compared to which Twink is, says Dustin, "a saint". It is Max von Blowoff's mission to wreck the show, but he is defeated as no baddie ever was in any panto - there is no show to wreck.
Dustin and Soky's Big Little Christmas is a show about a show - a bad show about a bad show. This creates terrible moments of tension, such as that when Dustin (the turkey, for IFSC types who've never watched Den 2 of an afternoon) opines that he always wanted to be a comedian and Damien (McCaul) responds that "No one is laughing". The silent theatre echoes the truth back to him.
This panto, usually the great alternative to the Gaiety, is appallingly written by Ciarβn Morrison and Mick O'Hara, and appallingly directed by the famous human pipe-cleaner, Mikel Murfi. He lets no one's talent down more than his own by immuring himself in the character of fussy, tea-making Aunt Monica. The dancing, choreographed by Ashling Doyle, is just terrible, halfway between Opportunity Knocks and an evening entertainment at Butlins.
There is no story except the story of the making of the panto, and the characters have almost nothing with which to work. Myles Breen is strong as Max von Blowoff, but when you compare it with the field day he had last year as one of Cinderella's ugly sisters, it would make you cry.
Damien McCaul (he's the good-looking one from Den 2, oh you IFSC type) just stood there and smiled while his implausible love interest, Lorna Dempsey, as if a stray from another panto, was full of the girlie flutters you'd expect of a girl of 15.
As for the real stars, Soky and Dustin, Socky barely gets a word in and Dustin is more lack-lustre than you'd expect of a turkey who'd lived to see the 26th.
It was really the production values you'd miss Twink for, though. And I don't just mean the fact that this reviewer had to beg for her ticket with crying child at her knee, could not phone her newspaper because her mobile was down, the payphone was full and no assistance of any kind was offered, could not get her hands on a programme until she had found someone in the auditorium from whom she could borrow the required three quid, and was then accused of stealing the programme . . . No, it wasn't there that the lack of finesse really showed, but in the shocking lack of glamour on the stage. What's central to panto is the word "transformation", and you need to spend money to achieve it.
Would you send a child you liked to it? No, I wouldn't.