9 to 5 The Musical

Just to make you all thoroughly jealous, I am writing this overlooking the sea in Cyprus in brilliant sunshine. However, your great show set me up making a perfect start to my holiday. The direction was superb.  What more can I say, Adam, than I hope I have the privilege of watching another one of your shows soon.

The set was incredibly clever making for smooth, efficient scene changes, the costumes were just right adding to the magic of this production and the lighting courtesy of Matt Pike was spot on. The Orchestra and MD should be congratulated for playing such a brilliant accompaniment despite the acoustics problems in the Pavilion and Brian Mercer on sound pulled all stops out ensuring that the words of the songs could be clearly heard. In fact, technically, this was an excellent show all round but in the long run it is the cast who make or break a production.

I have been lucky enough to see some excellent musicals this year and this was certainly amongst the best. For me the star of this particular one was Mark Roberts, as Franklin Hart Jnr. whose singing and acting were outstanding. I enjoyed ‘Potion Notion’ and ‘Dance of Death’ but I really loved ‘Here for You’, which was in a class of its own. The scenes in his office were hilarious especially when ‘propositioning’ Doralee very well played by Suzanne Britten. She was every inch Dolly Parton with her incredible voice singing ‘Backwoods Barbie’ and ‘Cowgirl’s Revenge’.  Her South American accent never slipped and she came over as perfect for the role. The other two girls, making up the trio determined to cause the down fall of the lecherous Mr Hart, Hayley Hammond as Judy and Chloe Holt as Violet both acted and sang with conviction.  It was lovely seeing Sally McDonald playing such a demanding role as Roz who was totally in love with her boss. Her solo version of ‘5 to 9’ was both moving and appropriate to her character.

All the other principals gave solid acting performances with suitable facial expressions, body language and good use of pauses. Their singing was strong requiring a lot of harmony and variation of style.  It is great to see this society with its new name performing so many new and up to date productions, their next two being no exception. 

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.