A cow jumping over the moon and a Dish running away with a Spoon were just the start of the nursery rhyme references that peppered this cleverly-written pantomime by Karl Whitmore.

It was a concept that so easily could’ve gone awry in the wrong hands! But with Directors Mish Whitmore and Lily Boudewijn at the helm, a wonderful cast of young actors, and even some original songs by Immy Netherway, Harry Spencer and Karl Whitmore, this madcap tale was in very good hands indeed.

Harrison Hartup was a perfect baddie as Desmond Dish, combining vocal gravitas with a hammy sneer to elicit boos a-plenty from the audience.

Eight-year-old Emiley Gale was a joy as Marjory the cow – for one so young, she had a grasp beyond her years of facial expressions and comic timing. Her energy and enthusiasm was infectious, and both she and Ria Seager – as a cheeky and loveable Simon Spoon – had the audience on side from the beginning.

Narrators Freddie Hollis and Robin Romero as Cat and Diddly respectively guided the audience through the story, introducing them to a wide range of nursery rhyme favourites, including Mrs Hubble (Maisie Pardey) and her dog (Isla Rea) and of course Miss Muffett (Immy Netherway) with her infamous dislike of spiders, which resulted in an unlikely but endearing romance! Every one of these, and their fellow, young actors took their characters and ‘ran’ with them, embracing the panto silliness without losing their individual characters.

May Wilson and River Szawiel made a great pair as Jack and Jill Spoon, and Martha Kendal was a brilliant bundle of energy as Tia Spoon. Her enemies to friends arc with Simon Spoon’s love interest, Delilah Dish (Izzy Cambray), was a highlight, both actors bringing equal parts humour and traditional panto sentimentality to their roles.

Credit, too, must go to Latia Charles and Cheyenne Horne as Cleaver and Grater, who found themselves handling heckles galore from the Rainbow troupe in the audience. The ‘He’s Behind You!’ sequence can be chaotic enough for adult performers, so it was doubly wonderful to see youngsters controlling it so well.

A troop of aliens and townsfolk made up the rest of the cast, every one of them keeping the energy high and adding yet more humour and panto silliness to proceedings – the aliens made this reviewer feel particularly lucky to be in the balcony when they let rip with the water pistols!

With references from musicals to Shakespeare, a cast that were clearly loving every minute, and with a message at its heart about determination, love, and succeeding not just against the odds, but sometimes in a different way to that which you expected, ‘Cowterspace’ was a triumph.  

Alternative pantomime stories are tricky to do, and even trickier to do well, but this was a masterclass in how to keep all the traditional panto staples audiences know and love whilst telling a fresh tale.