From a giant twerking fowl to jibes about Liz Truss, this Mother Goose delivers the panto goods

It’s a truth nationally acknowledged that for the Brits, it’s not Christmas without pantomime. Although panto does take place elsewhere in some countries where the British used to rule such as Canada and Australia, the rest of the world finds the phenomenon baffling. Brits, on the other hand, can’t seem to lap up enough of it.

So attending Mother Goose at Hackney Empire, which celebrates its 120th anniversary this year, was an exercise in keen curiosity if, like me and my American companion, you’d never been to a pantomime before and wondered why this raucously absurd form of theatre is such an intrinsic staple of the British festive season.

Apart from an approximation of a fairy-tale, a dame portrayed by a big, hairy cross-dressing man and the noisy call-and-response ripostes of audience participation, I didn’t know what to expect. Thankfully, directed by its star Clive Rowe (reputedly one of the greatest dames of all time and now in his 15th pantomime for Hackney Empire), his electric performance worth the price of admission alone, this show is a bumper cracker’s worth of Christmas cheer.

Set in Hackney Woods, Mother Goose Makeovers is three years in arrears because Mother Goose would rather spread love than charge people for her services. Meanwhile, Fairy Fame (Gemma Wardle) makes a bet with Demon Queen (Rebecca Parker) that she can’t turn Mother Goose over to the dark side. But, with the arrival of riches courtesy of Priscilla, a giant goose who twerks out progressively bigger golden eggs and the promise of everlasting beauty, Mother Goose abandons her motherliness to obsess over her self-image engendered by an unhealthy addiction to social media.

Will Brenton’s script is brimming with extended skits punning the names of chocolate bars, cheesy dad jokes and political salvos about the current cost of living crisis. When Demon Queen doesn’t think the audience is booing her enough, she exhorts it to pretend she is Liz Truss, and a pointed swipe at Jacob Rees-Mogg had the audience guffawing. There is the odd bit of smut but it’s very low-key compared with the ribaldry of some pantomimes, and the singalong sections refreshingly incorporate familiar pop songs by Dua Lipa and Earth Wind & Fire.

The post-interval roll call of great entertainers like Harry Houdini and Louis Armstrong who have featured at Hackney Empire jarred a little, but how often can whole families have fun in the same place at the same time watching several live art forms play out on stage? That and its democratic, subversive take on British eccentricity seems to be the beauty of pantomime.

Until Dec 31. Tickets: 020 8985 2424; hackneyempire.co.uk