A Long Time Ago

It was delightful to be greeted so warmly by the members of RODS for their annual pantomime, A Long Time Ago. The audience were obviously there to have a really good time and Stephanie Phipps had really delivered a true panto experience for them to enjoy. This panto, set in space, had cute aliens, an evil baddie, songs to join in with and a poor audience member dragged up on stage to take part in a cooking challenge The denouement of an exchange of vows was even set in The Pink Toothbrush!

The music was really good from the walk-in music to the excellent 3-piece band (The Cantina Trio) all of whom were obviously really enjoying all the daft panto action on the stage. Richard Langstone led the band on keyboards with, Phil Langstone on guitar and Phil Stevenson supplying the appropriate drum ‘sting’ after every panto joke! It’s so great to have a live band to play for shows.

The set was good with home made extra props which, in themselves, were humorous. One control panel had Pwess on the buttons as a clue to the lisp that the ‘baddie’ assumed. Dave Smith was a magnificent Emperor Mange and his delivery was a cross between Mr Bean and Jonathan Ross. Luckily there were a lot of ‘r’s’ in the script for him to mangle to great effect. His ‘wing of tewwow’ (ring of terror) was beautifully established at the outset. Trevor Bavin as Stella Artois, the Dame, was obviously enjoying the role and took good control over the proceedings. His costumes were wonderful and his interactions with the audience were good fun.

I really enjoyed the dance routines, set by choreographer Kathryn Llewellyn, not only because they admirably suited the cast in the company, but also because the cast obviously enjoyed doing them. The cast really threw themselves into all the songs and dances and were a pleasure to watch. Their costumes were carefully thought out from the silver deely boppers to the alien outfits. I particularly enjoyed the Star Wars bar in fact it was all was all colourful and fun.

Flash Artois (Artois!!...we all had to shout out Artois every time it was mentioned) was just great. Beverley Syrett took on the principal boy role with terrific confidence and great delivery. Another star performer was Zoe Tebbutt as the rather tipsy Queen Ursa. I’ve a feeling that Zoe played another tipsy part in past shows?  Is this type casting, Zoe? The King, Mike Robertson and The Queen made a great pairing. Princess Orion, Charlotte-Alice Spicer, and Prince Mooncheese, played by Jonathan Pipe, were another great pairing. The contrast between the feisty Princess and her disgust at poor Prince Mooncheese was lovely and drew a lot of sympathy from the audience especially in the Taylor Swift song, ‘Never ever getting back together’. Blooper and Gormless played by Linda Coley and Maree Gaskin respectively, were great fun as the  2 aliens supporting Mange. That pairing was really good and they bounced off each other really well. Dark Ada with her German accent, spoken by Freya Jemson was very amusing but a huge congratulations must go to Liam Parker, as Elvis. My word, from the moment he swaggered onto that stage and twinkled at the audience, we couldn’t take our eyes of him. What a great voice and fantastic stage presence, he was, obviously, having the time of his life.

Scene changes and set were smoothly done and lights and sound were great especially the sparkly backcloth for the space scenes.

Well done RODS, this was a fun evening that cheered everyone up and the family feel in your group is always delightful to witness. My thanks for looking after us and I look forward to your next show.

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