Joseph Vella will play the title role in Dick Whittington and His Cat at the King’s Head Theatre, with Patricia Wilkins, Sé Carr and Ash Weir completing the Islington panto company alongside Victoria Scone and River Medway.
Joseph Vella, who grew up in the borough, comes back to Islington this Christmas to play Dick Whittington in the King’s Head Theatre’s pantomime, Dick Whittington and His Cat. The family show runs from 22 November 2026 to 3 January 2027, and tickets are on sale now.
Three more names complete the company. Patricia Wilkins is Alice Fitzgerald, Sé Carr, who also performs as the drag king Jamie Fuxx, plays Ding-Dong/Elvis Pawsley, and Ash Weir takes Anne Semble as well as understudying. They join the two RuPaul’s Drag Race UK names announced in September: Victoria Scone as Dragpuss and River Medway as Queen Rat.
Vella trained at Arts Educational Schools. On stage he has appeared in the UK tour of Mamma Mia!, Pretty Woman at Theatre 11 in Zurich, Becoming Nancy at Birmingham Rep, the European tour of Fame, Annie Get Your Gun at the Lavender Theatre, Gypsy at the Mill at Sonning and From Here To Eternity at Charing Cross Theatre, and on television in the BBC’s Last Night of the Proms: A Tribute to Dolly Parton.
Wilkins, a graduate of The Urdang Academy, counts Young Frankenstein at Hope Mill Theatre in Manchester, Back to the Future at the Adelphi Theatre and Dirty Dancing at the Dominion Theatre and on its UK and Ireland tour, among her stage work. Her other credits include the international tour of Flashdance and A West End Christmas at Cadogan Hall, and she has taken part in workshops of Dirty Dancing, Evita at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre and Bring It On.
Carr comes from the North of Ireland and has worked on award-winning productions on both sides of the Irish Sea, among them Oliver Cromwell Is Really Very Sorry, which took Best Ensemble at Dublin Fringe, and Acid’s Reign, in which Carr created the role of Mickey Steele and played it in London and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. As Jamie Fuxx, Carr has performed around the UK since 2021, and also founded and hosts Magic Dyke, a drag king cabaret that has played The Clapham Grand, Underbelly Boulevard and Pleasance Theatre.
Weir, an actor and writer known for comic multi-rolling, was also in Acid’s Reign at the Pleasance during the Edinburgh Fringe. Her stage credits include But I’m a Cheerleader at the Turbine Theatre, which brought her an Offie Award nomination, Peaky Blinders: The Rise, Doctor Who: Time Fracture and Aladdin at the Stephen Joseph Theatre. Recently she has been developing her one-woman musical comedy show Fiasco! and the pilot of her audio sitcom The Fae Trap. As a student at the University of Cambridge she toured internationally with the Cambridge Footlights and was the original Anne Boleyn in the student cast of SIX.
Scone is back at the King’s Head as Dragpuss a year after playing Dame Trott in its Jack and the Beanstalk, while Medway makes a first appearance at the theatre as Queen Rat.
Andrew Pollard, who won Best Writer at the 2026 UK Pantomime Awards, writes and directs. Around him are Nicky Bunch (set and costume design), Elize Layton (choreography), George W. Parris (musical supervision and musical direction), Alex Lewer (lighting), Anna Smart (sound) and Robin Lill (costume supervision), with general management from James Quaife for Luminous Entertainment Group.
Pollard said: “I’m absolutely thrilled with the company we’ve brought together for Dick Whittington and His Cat this year. Joseph, Patricia, Sé and Ash are all brilliant performers with such a fantastic range of skills, and they join Victoria and River to make a cast that feels perfectly suited to the joyful, mischievous and gloriously theatrical spirit of the King’s Head panto.”
Looking ahead to rehearsals, Pollard added: “Dick Whittington is such a great London story, and I can’t wait to get this company into the room and start bringing our version of it to life for audiences of all ages — and, of course, for the rather less well-behaved audiences coming to Adults Only.”
Those less well-behaved audiences have a production of their own. Dick Whittington: Adults Only, a racier telling of the same tale, runs from 26 November 2026 to 2 January 2027, following the theatre’s decision last year to add more adults-only performances after audiences asked for them.
The theatre is also keeping the panto within reach of local families. Its Golden Bells Pay It Forward scheme raises money to give free tickets to children and families who could not otherwise go, and it continues to work with the Mayor of Islington’s 11 by 11 scheme, which sets out to give every child at least eleven free cultural activities by the age of eleven. More than 2,250 schoolchildren have come to the King’s Head for free over the past two years.
Amber Massie-Blomfield, the King’s Head’s interim executive director and CEO, and interim executive producer James Quaife said: “Pantomime is such an important part of Christmas at the King’s Head, and we want as many people as possible from our local community to be able to experience it. The Golden Bells Pay-it-Forward Ticket Scheme has already enabled thousands of children to come through our doors, many of them for their first experience of live theatre, and we’re enormously proud to continue the scheme this year.”
They continued: “Alongside the Golden Bells Ticket Scheme, our Pay What You Can performances and £15 tickets are part of our wider commitment to keeping the King’s Head accessible. At a time when family budgets are under real pressure, it feels more important than ever that a trip to the theatre can remain part of Christmas for families across Islington and beyond.”
Both productions include Pay What You Can performances, and tickets from £15 are available across both runs. Press performances are on Friday 27 November 2026 at 7pm for Dick Whittington: Adults Only and on Sunday 29 November 2026 at 1pm for Dick Whittington and His Cat. Tickets for both are on sale now.
