All Pals Together

This society presents a wartime-themed concert annually to coincide with the North Yorkshire Moors Railway Wartime Weekend.   The programme notes indicated that the show was designed to recreate and celebrate the camaraderie of the Home Front and that of the armed and support forces in the 1940s and I must right away congratulate Maureen Symonds for putting the show together.  Whilst it included several old favourites a good number of the items were new to me and, I suspect, several in the audience.

Opening with the National Anthem (hooray!) and the ‘Dambusters March’ a cast of ten Ladies, five Gentlemen and nine Children worked hard in numbers such as ‘Up Housewives and At ‘Em’, ‘Winning Through’, ‘We Mustn’t Miss the Last Bus Home’, ’Play a Simple Melody’ and ‘Pack Up Your Troubles’.  All were sung pretty well and when movement was involved it gave the show more colour.

The opening segment was set, appropriately, in a railway station and included a carriage that moved off the stage when the child evacuees had boarded.  Very good.  The Children themselves were given a chance to shine in numbers including ‘Let’s All Sing Like The Birdies Sing’, involving the audience well, and ‘Roll Out The Barrel’ and whilst “belt it out” is not a technical comment it perhaps would have helped them a bit!

The vocals were interspersed with some enjoyable sketches and extracts from a few of Churchill’s well known speeches which added to the atmosphere.

Highlights for me were the group’s ‘Tramp, Tramp, Tramp’, ‘Blue Skies’ (Alice Rose and Stephen Temple), ‘I’ll Be Home For Christmas’ (Michael O’Brien), ‘Goodbye Sally’ (Matthew Russell), Goodnight Children Everywhere (Karen Hebron) and ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’ (Rachel Anderson).

I felt that the performance lacked a bit of “oomph”, especially early on, not helped by the performers at times waiting for their music.  By the latter half of Act One things were moving better as they were in Act Two which ended with a section including ‘Jerusalem’, ‘Rule Britannia’, ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ and ‘We’ll Meet Again’ all of which were augmented by the audience who also enjoyed the fireworks.

I thought the set, including a very good car in the final scenes, was excellent and smoothly moved on a darkened stage.  Costumes were also super and totally in keeping with the era with a selection of uniforms from all services on display.  Apart from my earlier comment I thought the orchestra made a good sound in support of the cast.

A very nostalgic evening.

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