50 Cent at the Odyssey: the first pantomime of the Christmas season. It’s a remarkable show, ridiculously overblown and often just downright ridiculous. Excess and conspicuous consumption, both attributes you’d associate with Yuletide and traits which Fiddy gleefully flaunts. Medallions and jewellery gleam like Christmas tree baubles, there are flaming pyrotechnics and giant video screens relaying everything from dancing guns, yes, twirling AK-47s and Glocks, to 40 foot lady bums which quiver like mom’s festive trifle.
The blitzkrieg hip-hop of ‘I Get Money’ sends Fiddy dollars raining from the roof of the arena, presumably we can spend them in the ‘Candy Shop’. Meanwhile our man lumbers about, collecting the lacy delicates that litter the stage, knickers hanging from his back pocket like spoils of war. He stops to compare the sizes of his, ahem, booty, modelling the brassieres against his own bulging chest and proclaiming, with not a trace of irony, “bigger don’t mean better”. Next he leads the audience in a rendition of “smoke weed, get drunk, fuck”, it’s the new “he’s behind you” in what is easily the most entertaining panto I’ve ever been to.
The brute rhythm of ‘In Da Club’ summons the entire arena to its feet. The audience are mesmerised, following the leader’s every gesture, responding to every prompt, it’s all too much for some, their limp bodies dragged from the front rows. Before he takes his leave, Fiddy throws shoes and assorted other garments into the midst of the faithful, his actions inviting a final flourish of fist-throwing pandemonium. Go on, beat that Buttons.