Snow
White and the Seven Dwarfs
The
Review by Emma Shane
© 8 January 2006
I very much enjoyed last year’s production of Beauty And The Beast,
so it was with high hopes but some trepidation that I ventured down to Poole to
see this year’s production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
The fact that quite a number of last year’s cast would be in it was promising,
but would it be as good as last year’s panto?
Curtain up, overture and into Act One, Scene 1,The Prologue.
Starting with the mirror centre stage, and a voice-over narrator, the voice of the
mirror, setting the scene; the narrator sounds quite like last year’s. During
this narrative, the first cast member to make a brief appearance is Snow White
herself, but it is not a speaking appearance, so for the purpose of the cast
listing in the programme it doesn’t count. Next on Snow White’s stepmother, The
Wicked Queen, played by magnificent Louise Plowright, to tell how, with
The King dead, she intends to wear his crown and rob her step-daughter of her
beauty by treating her as a scullery maid. Accent-wise, and script-wise her
lines make one think a little of Absolutely Fabulous, and I
couldn’t help wondering if that was inspired by her usual hairstyle? There is a
slight surprise here in her appearance, however, in that her hair is brown and
straight, about shoulder length, with a fringe descending down practically into
her blue eyes. Is it a wig or a change of hair-colour? I couldn’t really tell.
But her chiselled cheekbones strong voice, and commanding stage presonce, mean
that she is immediately recognisable (though one should already have worked
that out by knowing which character she is playing). I think I commented that last year her
costumes only just covered enough to be decent. No such problems this year. She
wears a quite stunning long red court/evening dress. The top part of which
seemed a little reminiscent of a 1970s style-jumpsuit (bit like in the musical Mamma
Mia)! The long skirt of her dress does rather hide her legs, which is a
shame, The skirt flairs slightly towards the end, a sort of 1970s crossed with
1920s style, which looks very effective given her tall, well-built, but trim
figure. A complete contrast to the next entrance. A plump Fairy Flutter all in
white, played by Lynette McMorrough. Though she does a reasonable job of
portraying the fairy as a slightly doddery old woman, rather in the style of
June Whitfield, she seems a little uneasy at saying some of the more
ridiculous lines of dialogue, about having wandered into the wrong pantomime,
but deciding to stay anyway, with complete conviction. Nevertheless she comes
across as reasonably professional; and sings a song, during which she and The
Wicked Queen have to dance a little, round each other; she demonstrates that
which she is no spring-chicken, she was clearly knows how to be graceful in
movement (as one would expect from an Arts Educational trained performer). The
prologue continues, in the form of a song, Welcome To The Sixties (from Hairspray)
with altered lyrics, mainly sung by Lynette, to introduce the rest of the
principals, all of whom have bits of dialogue. Right away with this first scene
some of them (namely: The Wicked Queen, Fairy Flutter, and, Snow White) have
already created lasting impressions of what their characters and performances
will be like.
The show proper commences with Scene 2: The Town Square. Snow
White and Igor are going about their work, sweeping. Presently they stop, as
the Lord Chamberlain enters, to tell them that King Ferdinand From Afar
is coming to pay a visit. The Queen is in a state about it, In fact it’s given
her a headache, and Nurse Slapper has gone to get the Royal Disprin. The
Lord Chamberlain and Igor warn Snow White to keep out of the way. But she seems
unperturbed; despite a double entendre delivered by surprisingly by Brian Cant,
of all people, “The Queen is going bonkers, and you know how big her bonkers
are.” Well if you’re going to put in a double entendre, then it adds to our
amusement to give it to the most unlikely person to say it. Nurse
Slapper, enters, with a large syringe, and, a shopping basket, and proceeds to
give away the contents: A pretend egg, an Oxo cube, three packets of crisps
(one of which bursts) and numerous wrapped sweets, by throwing them into the
audience. (Lets hope this doesn’t get unwrapped too noisily). The dame launches
into I’m The Nurse With A Little Bit Extra. A jolly song,
pleasantly sung, but Matthew Rixon’s diction wasn’t too good. A trumpet heralds
what they all think is the arrival of King Ferdinand, “He’s early”
remarks Nurse Slapper, reprised a moment later by The Queen. In fact it turns out
to be his son Prince William, played by Darren Bennett. The King is ill
with flu, Nurse Slapper offers to go and administer to him, but is firmly
rebuffed by politely by The Prince, and rather less politely by The Lord
Chamberlain. Somehow, I can’t quite remember what it was about, we had a lovely
little moment in which The Queen had to make a request, involving a little
dance routine, The Prince also had something to request, and copied the dance
routine, easily, and finally the Lord Chamberlain had a request to make
complete with attempting to copy the routine, laughably badly; fortunately this
fitted in with his character. Last year, Brian Cant seemed unsure
whether he was supposed to be playing a comic old man or a middle-aged
father-figure. This time he is definitely the comic old man, and as a result
seems to fit much better into the more defined role. Meanwhile Louise
Plowright’s Wicked Queen is sweetly gushing to Darren Bennett’s
handsome Prince, and then sharply contrasts it by barking commands (in a manner
a very reminiscent of Donna The Dynamo, only more controlling) as she exits
about how she is going to raise taxes in a way that would make Tony Blair
look popular! I thought it nice to have a very mild touch of what could be
political satire worked in. The Prince and Snow White find themselves left
alone on the stage. Obviously a case of love at first sight; they sing about
their feelings for each other. I’m not sure what the song really was, but it
seemed quite pleasant. As The Prince Darren Bennett sang it very nicely
and of course danced brilliantly (even if he did not have much complex dancing
to do), but was unfortunately somewhat dominated vocally by Shelley Otway’s
Snow White. Unfortunate, in my humble opinion, because her voice seemed a bit
strident and her performance rather too showy and in your face for my taste.
Sometimes less is more. However, she is not without talent and some
showmanship. One can easily believe that she would have her eyes on the Prince,
he is a prince, but I wasn’t too sure what he saw in her, as yet. Still Darren
Bennett is a convincing actor, so if his Prince says he loves Snow White,
we’ll just accept that without wondering too much why. However, Snow White is
by no means the only person with eyes on The Prince....
Scene 3 in The Royal Kitchen, finds The Prince, The Lord
Chamberlain, and The Queen all demanding an audience The latter enters
commandingly ordering her henchman Igor to kill Snow White, and bring her Snow
White’s heart in a wooden box. He is reluctant, but has no choice; while she
sounds very much like a battleaxe, straight out of G&S! - quite
wonderful. Turning to the audience, she declares how clever she is “Oh yes I
am”, which is of course the audiences cue to say “Oh no you’re not”.
Though this went on about four times, and Louise varied her tone and style each
time. The audience’s part didn’t work too well; mainly I think because Louise
Plowright is such a talented, clever, commanding performer that the
audience isn’t all that inclined to cross her, even when pantomime convention
dictates that is it does; as a result the audience response was a bit
half-hearted. She is now standing before the mirror. We think we’re in for a
classic Disney pantomime scene. But here’s a nice twist. She barks “Hit
it” and The Orchestra strike up something that might be more familiar to
musical theatre fans as a Stepehn Sondheim number from Follies.
And really, I can’t think of a more appropriate showtune to insert into a
pantomime version of Snow White than this one...Who’s That Woman,
otherwise known as The Mirror Number! Ordinarily, I might be a
bit wary on finding such a terrific classic musical theatre number in a
pantomime, it would be too easy for a splendid song to get murdered. But, right
away I knew there was absolutely no danger of that happening here. With the
sensational Louise Plowright to sing it it’s a real treat, and one,
which I don’t think even the Sondheim purists could object to. She sings
brilliantly, and makes the song very much her own, no matter who from Mary
McCarty to Shezwae Powell has sung it before, not to mention those
amazing chorus line-ups you get for backing singers whenever this number is
performed in any major production of Follies. She proves that she
has the voice and wits to do this song full justice; although, judging by her
resume, she hasn’t done all that much Sondheim hitherto; she really should do
more of it, because she clearly has the ability to do it so well. As a Sondheim
performer she could surely rank up there with the likes of: Kathryn Evans,
Louise Gold and Liz Robertson, not to mention Anna Francolini,
Sally-Ann Triplett, and, Tracey Wiles. Her costume fits rather
well into this number. The skirt is so long, that we can’t see her legs too
well, but it does give a good idea of the kind of evening dresses the old-girls
would wear when performing that number in the musical. That coupled with the
fact that she is so tall, and had some decent tap-dancing abilities, means that
in her performance, she also looks very much as though she could be one of the
old-girls straight out of a production of Follies; except that
perhaps she might still be considered a few years too young, mind you Kathryn
Evans and Louise Gold (who are close to her in age) did that show
three years ago, at the Royal Festival Hall. perfectly well. Of
course having a first rate soloist is one thing, but The Mirror Number
really needs an ensemble, and a fine effort is made to provide one. On come two
suave chorus boys, actually Darren Bennett and Anthony Reed (The
Prince and his Assistant) here doubling up) in exactly the right kind of
costume. Both tap dance extremely well, therefore, while Louise taps a fair bit
herself, they handle the bulk of the really complicated dancing, with an
impressive solo each, while Louise weaves in between them indicating with her
hands (and face) when it is their turn for a solo. Part-way through they are
joined at the back by the Senior Chorus. Very much like in Follies
where the Ghosts come on part-way through. All in all the cast, led by Louise
Plowright, did the number justice.
The Mirror Number was going to be a hard act to follow, in fact while
it was lovely to have Louise singing so brilliantly early in the show, instead
of leaving it to the end of the act, I did wonder how they could follow on from
it, not to mention how on earth they would end the first act. Fortunately they
did the most sensible thing, and had a fairly irrelevant comedy moment to start
Scene 4 Outside The Town. Snow White encounters Nurse Slapper
who, in sports gear, is trying to get in shape to attract The Prince. On hear
that The Prince is in love with Snow White the dame initially says “Oh no he
doesn’t”, and here the audience give the customary response “Oh yes he
does” with much more spirit. It’s easier to do that when the subject is a
third character. Or perhaps it’s due in part to Matthew Rixon’s
characterisation. Eventually the dame says it will settle for his assistant. In
the previous scene Nurse Slapper had worn a ginger wig in two wild bunches. But
this time it is a wig that twists the hair into a long point upwards; which
reminded me very much of the fairy Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid in the
Scene 5, finds Igor and Snow White in the Royal Forrest,
he comes at her with a knife, but can’t bring himself to do the deed, confesses
all, and tells Snow White she must hide in the forest, and never come back,
meanwhile he will take The Queen the heart of some animal. Mark Osmond
acts this poor character very well. Although in some ways Igor is mean to be
the stereotype simpleton, Mark gives the character something extra, a bit of
likeability for a start; and in fact the character does not come across as so
stupid as to be ridiculous. But more a poor unfortunate man, who for whatever
reason can’t manage to better himself. He departs, and Snow White falls down
asleep, on comes Fairy Flutter, to wave a spell try and protect her. This time Lynette
McMorrow’s fairy comes across more confidently as a traditional good fairy,
who knows what she is doing.
Scene 6 is back in The Royal Kitchen. Igor
brings The Wicked Queen a box, into which he has put the heart of a fox. The
Prince enters, to ask The Queen for Snow White’s hand in marriage. Here we get
a well written piece of gory farce, in which The Queen is trying to get The
Prince to transfer his affections to her, and (while caressing the box)
carefully hinting at what has become of Snow White (or so she thinks), but
never quite actually saying so. Its a wonderfully crafted scene, that needs
some first rate acting to pull it off, luckily its in the very capable hands of
Darren Bennett and Louise Plowright. Of the two Louise seems to
have the more difficult job, her timing and intonation has to be spot on.
Fortunately, it is not for nothing, that she won Bristol Old Vic’s Chesterton
Lalande Award For Female Student Of 1987. She’s a gifted actress
and a true professional who speaks with utter conviction and knows exactly how
to handle a scene like this one; with all the subtleties of manner, including
facial expressions, needed; sometimes she even changes accent (such as dropping
into an American twang) for added effect. Some of the dialogue did tend towards
the grotesque, perhaps a bit too much so, for the language was distinctly
reminiscent of that Kitchen at The Other End Of Nowhere scene in
Scene 7 has Snow White finding The Dwarves House In The Forrest,
entering and tidying it up, while singing Whistle While You Work.
This was a very pantomimish performance from Shelley Otway, in a manner
that appeared rather more like a comedian doing a parody of a children’s TV
presenter. Therefore while not entirely convincing, as this is a pantomime it
just about passes muster.
Meanwhile in Scene 8, outside the Town. Enter the Dwarves,
played by members of the junior chorus, retuning from work, singing the
traditional Disney song associated with this fairytale of Hi Ho Hi Ho Its
Off To Work We Go.
Scene 9 back at The Dwarves house, finds They
think their is a ‘monster’ in their house, but soon discover, that the
‘monster’, Snow White, of course, is friendly.
We come to the Act one finale, Scene 10 The Witches Spell.
Having already had a song from The Wicked Queen, I wasn’t expecting another in
this act, but was pleasantly surprised to find a scene very similar to last
year’s Act 1 finale. Centre back of the stage, Louise Plowright
commandingly alone in full regalia as the villainess, with two flying wires.
Once again she launches into what appears to be a pop-style number. Although it
is in fact another showtune, Stephen Schwartz’s Defying Gravity
from the musical Wicked. I thought it not as good a song as last
year’s Don’t Rain On My Parade by Jule Styne.
However, with Louise Plowright to perform it, it is of course
extremely well sung. She has a rather unusual flair for being able to sing
pop-style songs rather well, making them fit right into a musical-theatre
context, as was much in evidence during her five year stint in Mamma Mia.
Movement wise, initially she seems a little stiff, perhaps a result of her
flying harness, and a huge skirt. But she makes good use of her arms (all those
ABBA-style arm movements in Mamma Mia evidently left their
muscle memory - to borrow a line from Follies), and once
the flyman raises her from the ground, she appears quite graceful with her
whole body. When practically out of site, her skirt is dropped from its
moorings to descend alone just before the curtain does.
Act Two also opens in a similar manner to last year, with the Dame doing a
song-and-dance number with both Senior and Junior choruses, though this time in
The Town Square. Although Matthew Rixon doesn’t have quite
panache of Chris Hayward, I thought that the song, about My Silly
Frilly Frock, was much more suitable, for the song lent itself to being
camped up and messed about with so much more. As far as looks Matthew Rixon
is much more camp than Chris Hayward was, but this is a pantomime, so
actually that works perfectly well. He plays the dame very much in his own way,
and for that he should be applauded. At the number’s conclusion, Brian Cant’s
Lord Chamberlain wanders on, with his arms full of scrolls, that The Queen
is requesting some very strange things for her cookery. All will be
revealed a little later, But first, what of Snow White, The Lord Chamberlain
says to the Dame “You haven’t heard?” It seems Snow White has
disappeared. The Dame repeats this news to The Prince when he wanders on.
Scene 2, Outside The Town, The Prince and his
assistant, decide to go and find Snow White, preferably without The Dame who
offers to come and help them (but must go and change a frock). They realise
that all is not right, there’s only one thing to do, fight evil, and When
You’re Fighting Evil its best to do it together. This is a parody of When
You’re Good To Mama from Chicago. Some of the lyric changes were
actually quite minor, such as to the one about scratching each other’s backs.
Halfway through The Dame enters, in new costume, and joins in the song. This is
exactly the sort of brilliant pastiche that fits very well into pantomime. Kander
and Ebb songs, do seem to lend themselves to take-offs remarkably well (For
example look at what Spitting Image & that programme’s Leading Puppeteer have
managed to do with some of them: Tomorrow Belongs To Me, Me
And My Baby, and, not forgetting Class).
We’re in for another brilliant piece of pastiche in Scene 3, only
this time it’s classic Rodgers and Hammerstein rather than Stephen
Sondheim! In The Royal Kitchen The Wicked Queen is busy
cooking something in a cauldron. Igor enters with some more ingredients, and a
few questions. Mark Osmond’s performance was good last year, but this
year his part is much more of a character, and how deliciously Louise
Plowright plays off him, though being very fair, she does give him ample
opportunity to shine too. She has a gift for being able to play off other
performers, and yet they still come across well. This includes a little joke
about the venue, Louise gets to deliver that one, about them being a bit short
staffed at The Lighthouse Cafe and needing a stew. She’s good at
switching quickly and easily between jokes that are totally in character, and
ones that are more about playing to an audience. She also makes excellent use
of her facial expressions to convey subtly and character to her audience.
Becoming tired of Igor’s questions/conversation, The Queen asks Igor to dive
down into the Cauldron to retrieve something. As she says, he’ll become a
part of Snow White’s end. And thereupon she launches into her third song,
My Favourite Things, with cleverly altered lyrics, so that all the ‘things’
listed are rather nasty instead of nice. With Louise Plowright’s
wonderful diction all could be heard crystal clearly. Some ‘things’ were
pretty gruesome, such as a rabbit with it’s head pulled off, but most of them
weren’t quite that gory, this is a family show. All the lyrics made a wonderful
contrast to the style of the song, Louise sang it beautifully; doing full
justice to the song vocally, and is more than comparable with both Mary
Martin and Julie Andrews. (She’s probably better than Mary Martin
diction and pronunciation-wise anyway). Meanwhile in the cauldron, Mark moves the
stirer, so it almost looks as if its self-stirring, and eventually holds up the
apple. Louise concludes the scene, by informing the audience that she is going
to find a spell to make her look really ugly, and disguise herself to take the
poison apple to Snow White. The powerful actress comes across spectacularly
well in this scene, as the kind of character one really wouldn’t want to get on
the wrong side of. And in a funny sort of way, even though its an unpleasant
character, one just can’t help admiring her.
Time for another classic bit of pantomime, “It’s behind you” in Scene
4: The Royal Forrest. The Prince, his assistant and The Dame, sit on a
log to sing Whenever I Feel Afraid I Whistle A Happy Tune, and
are plagued by a ghost, in the manner of last year’s spiders. Only much better.
Firstly the song suited the situation so perfectly, and secondly the trio this
year are all youthful enough to do it full out without getting tired. This time
First The Prince runs off, then his assistant, and finally a twist, The Dame
looks at the ghost, but it is the ghost that screams and runs off.
Scene 5: Outside the Town, finds The Dwarves reprising
the classic Hi Ho High Ho It’s Off To Work We Go, and building up
plot tension wondering if their new friend will be alright alone.
Scene 6: Snow White is along in the Dwarves House.
There is a knock at the door, and, well they have to get a moral in somehow.
Snow White says (still sounding a little like a comedian doing a parody) “The
Dwarves told me never to open the door to anyone. But just once can’t hurt, can
it?” She opens the door to a hunchback figure in a black cape and hood,
holding a basket of apples, and speaking with a very classy sweet English
accent (it made me think somewhat of the silky-voiced diva in Two’s A Crowd,
Perhaps that’s just a coincidence). The cloak is a good disguise, one almost
wouldn’t recognise magnificent tall Louise Plowright, except for it
being pretty obvious plot-wise (especially given her comments in Scene 3),
and the fact that every now and then, in asides, she drops into her usual
northern accent, entirely deliberately to make sure the audience know. It’s
actually quite impressive a performer to be able to change accent convincingly
so quickly. Some of them really can’t do it as smartly and quickly as that.
Though well hidden by her cloak, for a brief moment one of her slim ankles did
make an appearance; and her hunchback bore a marked similarity to her own
Sorceress-in-disguise at the beginning of last year’s panto, not to mention a passing
similarity to a certain Sweeney Todd’s Beggar-Woman. She urges
Snow White to take “just one bite” (her voice momentarily reminding us
of last year, when her sorceress had the line “my poisonous wine takes just
one drop....”. She speaks cruel ironic lines with with wonderful subtly.
Once Snow White has taken a bite, there on stage Louise straightens up to her
full 5ft10’ (even taller with her heels on), and throws back the hood of her
cloak, revealing herself, what an amazing contrast! She sweeps out with a well
sung welcome reprise of My Favourite Things, and, majestic swish
of the cloak, just as the Dwarves enter to find Snow White dead.
Scene 7 is back in The Royal Kitchen, why do
these pantomimes seem to spend so much of their time in Royal Kitchens?
Louise’s Wicked Queen, having ditched the cloak is clearly up to something
more. There is a welcome appearance from Darren, as The Prince, to again ask
for Snow White’s hand in marriage. This time The Wicked Queen almost gives it
to him straight, Snow White is dead. And she promptly offers herself to him.
Surprisingly (plot wise) he seems quite
drawn to her; how well Darren acts that out with his body language, without
having to say a word. We soon learn why, The Queen has concocted a spell to
make herself irresistibly attractive to him. As soon as The Prince hears this
his body takes on a very peculiar contortion, making him look like a cross-eyed
frog. “Kissy Kissy” says The Wicked Queen, in a manner that put me in
mind of Miss Piggy! - Is that what comes from two years digging the dancing
queen with Miss Piggy’s rival Annie Sue Pig (oh alright with Annie Sue’s
muppeteer to be precise)? At this critical moment, if The Prince kisses The
Wicked Queen he will be under her spell forever, Fairy Flutter enters, declares
that her magic is stronger than The Wicked Queen’s “And we’ve had enough of
your spells and wickedness. I’m going to have to do something with you...”
She contemplates turning her “into a musician”, but The Wicked Queen
protests with an insult which of all the cast possibly only Louise Plowright
could get away with delivering on stage, about being put in a pit, at
which bang on cue, led by Simon Gray, The Orchestra of: Andrew Franks,
Mike Potts, Huw Jones, Graeme Lawrence, and, Steve
Hayes poke their heads up out of the orchestra pit to say “Thanks a lot”.
Fairy Flutter decides its not a good idea, and concludes that she’ll just have
to “turn you into Julie Andrews” (could that have been inspired by
Lynette having been to the same stage school as Julie Andrews?), she
waves her wand and Louise exits warbling in her beautiful sweet, yet powerful
voice, The Hills Are Alive With The Sound Of Music, ending with a
gorgeously impressive high note. A rather more convincing exit for Louise
Plowright’s villainess than last year’s “going off in a huff”. The
fairy, sends The Prince to Snow White, telling him to kiss her.
With Scene 8, in The Royal Forrest,
surrounded by Dwarves that is exactly what he does. Entering with his graceful
dancers movements. This scene is rather comical, because it seems to take
several attempts. But at last having roused her they dance together a little,
and its noticeable that he is a rather better dancer than her. But perhaps he’s
getting used to partnering people who aren’t as good as he undoubtedly is. The
whole scene was underscored with a chorus humming to what I think was a very
strange arrangement of Lionel Bart’s Food Glorious Food.
Brian Cant and the tricorn hat he is wearing comes into his own
in Scene 9, Outside The Palace With full command of
the stage, knowing exactly what he is doing, he reads out the ‘Guest List’-
which includes The Trumpton Fire Brigrade (cue for some of the
audience to join in there), followed by “Hello’s”, and “Birthdays”,
and finally the Singalong. A big improvement on last year the song this time is
My Hat It Has Three Corners. Firstly I should think many more of
us would be familiar with the song anyway - I remember this song from
programmes like Play School! And secondly even if you didn’t know
it, it would be very easy to pick it up, especially with such an experienced
children’s TV presenter lining the song.
The grand finale, in stereotype fashion in The Royal Ballroom,
finds everyone in new costumes to take their bows, and sung-through ending by
the company.
Well I thought last year’s production of Beauty And The Beast was
pretty good; but this was so much better overall, and the performances of Brian
Cant and Louise Plowright especially.
Some performers were not quite up to the standard of their last year’s
counterparts, or at least, I felt that Shelley Otway wasn’t a patch on Cassidy
Jansen, and her Snow White seemed somewhat lacking in likeability (she
could perhaps learn a lesson or two about performance technique from paying
attention to Brian Cant and Louise Plowright). However, as it was
a pantomime, Ms Otway’s rather showy strident style, was not too out of place.
I’m sure she would be fine a role appropriate to her style. Matthew Rixon
was a very camp, but entirely satisfactory dame, although I did think his wigs
went perhaps a bit OTT, without having much stylishness about them. But again,
this is a pantomime, so the designers just about got away with it. When it came
to singing, he stuck to what he could do well, and did things his way, and was
therefore gave a reasonable performance. Lynette McMorrough’s Fairy
Flutter seemed to take a while to find her niche within the show, and though
initially she didn’t come across too well character wise, she sang nicely and
her performance improved steadily throughout the show. Meanwhile both choruses
were at least as good as last year, performing well. The Senior Chorus
consisted of four performers out of: Elanor Awford, Chloe Coulter,
Genna Delahunty, Beatrice Gunner, Natalie Khoshnevis, Charlotte
Kingston, Kate Hurley, Rebecca McAteer, and, Charlotte
McLeod. While the junior chorus consisted as of seven performers out of: Hannah
Adeney, Amy Barnard, Eloise Cornes, Phoebe Cornes, Rachel
Dalton, Jessica Greenham, Hannah Osbourne, Amy Owen, Jessica
Owen, Felice Southwell, Olivia Taylor, Abbie Thompson,
Kari Thompson, Megan Travers, and, Amy Wilson. A good
number of performances were definitely better than last year, partly due to being
better written giving the actors more scope. One fine example of this is Mark
Osmond’s part. Before he had merely played a simpleton. This time his Igor,
though fulfilling the role of stereotype simpleton, comes across much more as a
living breathing character, with feelings, who simply lacks the ability to get
out of the unfortunate station in life in which he has found himself.
Meanwhile, in the form of The Prince and his assistant, Darren Bennett
and Anthony Reed, made a splendid double-act; which made me think, I’d
like to see them tackle the roles of The Dromios in The Boys From
Syracuse. They both acted and danced what little dancing there was
extremely well, particularly in The Mirror Number. However if
this pantomime had one real flaw, it is that Darren Bennett didn’t have
enough opportunities to demonstrate his considerable dancing abilities. It was
nice to see him promoted to an ostensibly more important role (the hero), and
getting to sing (for he sings very nicely) but not at the expense of having
less opportunity to display his talents. I think his role last year gave him
more scope. However, he makes the best of what he’s given. He also manages to
be a very likeable prince, though I couldn’t really fathom what this character
saw in Shelley Otway’s Snow White, we want him to get her, because he
wants to. So full marks to him for being convincing and likeable, even if his
part didn’t quite do him justice. By contrast, Brian Cant was much
better suited to his role this year. He is not a young man, and last year,
despite his obvious professionalism, seemed to show distinct signs of fatigue.
This time he had less to do, spending much of the action wandering on at odd
intervals with various little bits and pieces. The result was that when he came
to do the penultimate scene, he still seemed quite fresh, and well able command
the stage alone, keeping the whole audience, especially the children,
entertained, just as he has done for so much of his career. It was a lovely
performance, a real reminder to any of us who grew up watching Play
School et al, just what a great entertainer of an actor he is. But good
though most of the cast are, if there is just one absolute star turn, then it
is that of the piece’s villainess, Louise Plowright as The Wicked Queen.
A true professional, this supertrouper was well worth seeing last year, but
this year she’s even better. On tip top sparkling form, as one should expect
from a
All in all, well worth travelling to