Tron theatre, Glasgow
Johnny McKnight’s irreverent and very funny panto is full of local colour and packed with put-downs – though never at the expense of the original film
Hollywood repeats itself, first as musical, second as panto. If you have never imagined Dorothy in drag, well, you have never reckoned on Johnny McKnight, the spangly gold standard of pantomime dames, swapping denim for gingham and following the yellow brick road out of Tronsis. It stretches only as far as the West End of Glasgow but packs in a dust-storm of diversions en route.
Somehow the writer, director and star takes one of cinema’s most sensitive tales and makes it raucous, irreverent and very, very funny. And he does so without mocking the original. In fact the movie is about the only thing that doesn’t get mocked in a show packed with put-downs of everything from rival Christmas shows to Alan Cumming in Burn, not forgetting the dazzling cast themselves.
