Dick Whittington is a truly entertaining pantomime with comic brilliance, audience participation and non-stop energy from the cast.

CBeebies and pantomime legend Chris Jarvis is back, sprinkling his magic as the hilarious Dame Dolly Doughnuts.  The creative storyline is easy for kids to follow and you’ll find lots of funny references to Poole throughout the show.

The story goes that Dick travels to London to find his fortune and the first friend he makes is Tommy the Cat who stays by his side and delivers some awesome gymnastics on stage.  Dick then meets the lovely Alice Fitzwarren and instantly falls in love.

Dick needs money so Alice tries to get him a job in her dads shop but they need to buy more chocolate to sell and they only have a bar of gold to use as money.  Dick is supposed to be watching the gold in the safe but King Rat steals it and tricks everyone into thinking that Dick took it.  When the family find out they send Dick on his way but it doesn’t take long for them to realise it was all an elaborate set up and so they make up and start their travel to Poole so they can purchase the chocolate.

After the interval, the crew are on a big ship travelling to the Isle of Wight and King Rat is trying to sink it!  Luckily, Fairy Bowbelles is on their side and she helps save the day.  I wish the Fairy had been on stage more though because her incredible voice gave me goosebumps.

The cast are clearly having a lot of fun in this panto and there was never a dull moment.  All of the actors were exceptional and of course the young rats and dancers were brilliant too.  We laughed so much throughout the show and when it ended my daughter just looked at me confused because she hadn’t realised how much time had passed.  Time really does fly when you’re having fun!  We both left the theatre absolutely buzzing, it's most definitely one of the best pantos I've ever seen.

Dick Whittington is running from Thursday 11th December 2025 - Sunday 4th January 2026.  A relaxed performance is on Friday 2 January 2026 at 6pm.

For more information and tickets, please visit Lighthouse Poole.

Image credit: Jayne Jackson Photography

Dorsetmums was invited to the performance for the purpose of a review however all words ae my own.