A Maltby & Shire and One Hit Wonders Wymsical

This time it was the turn of the Encore section of the group to produce their end of term entertainment, based around the music of perhaps lesser known Maltby and Shire and some popular one hit wonders.

The full company of 22 opened with an atmospheric rendition of Maltby & Shires ‘Starting Here, Starting Now’ which was followed by Sylvie Symons and Clara Davies’ ‘No Reason’ from “Beetlejuice” which was very good both musically and physically. Jess Young sang the challenging number ‘Love Will Come And Find Me Again’ well, with lots of light and shade and Emily Kitkat and Linus Hughes brought a maturity to ‘How Could I Ever Know’ from “Secret Garden” .

Lilah Payton led the company well with ‘Freddy My Love’ from “Grease” and Clara Davies sang ‘I’ll Be There’  from “Ordinary Days” beautifully and was quite absorbing. ‘76 Trombones’ led by Isaac McManus was a great company number and Megan Jones sang ‘Goodnight My Someone’ also from “The Music Man” with clarity. Ellie Morris and Lucy Allsop sang ‘That Easy / Here Before’ from Maltby & Shire’s “Closer Than Ever” with feeling, and to their credit with little help from the sensitive accompaniment.

Two numbers from “Hair” followed; Mimi Groves with ‘Easy to Be Hard’ and Phoebe McIntosh taking a strong lead with ‘Age of Aquarius’ with some nice harmonies from the company. Laura Harding’s voice carried well with ‘Autumn’, a second number from “Closer Than Ever”, and ‘The Book Report’ from “Your A Good Man, Charlie Brown” was well led by Mimi, Linus, Emily, Clara and Lucy Tyrrell.

Beth Lawson sang ‘Patterns’ from “Baby” with poise and great feeling and Ellie Morris’ ‘Astonishing’ from “Little Women” was goose bumpingly excellent. The concert closed with three more great numbers; Lucy Allsop, Sylvie Symons and Jess Young were clearly ‘Three Friends’ and ‘Seasons of Love’ from “Rent” led by Lydia Dimmock was quite uplifting.

Lilli Chown, Bliss Humphries, Georgie Levine, Cameron Morris, Parker Neal-Wilcocks and Rose Shepherd joined in well along the way and to close, the company clearly enjoyed ‘We Go Together’ from “Grease”, as did the audience. Another concert with a challenging variety of numbers directed by Penny Ashmore and Britt Needham, well executed by this talented company.

 

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