Babes In The Wood

I was warmly welcomed on arrival by Pru Shicallis and was able to discuss the performance at the end with Director and Producer Margaret Surrey.

This lovely village hall was buzzing with anticipation and noise and the audience was ready to participate in this pantomime. And what a fun pantomime this was! It was a good script with plenty of fun and laughter, an outrageous Dame, a baddie, a silly pair and lots of corny jokes.

The curtains opened to reveal the opening set cleverly designed by Terry Surrey. In fact Terry had designed all the sets including the village scenes, Sherwood Forest, and the castle using a mix of backdrops and solid constructs all built by the in house team. Very impressive. There was good use of the front curtains to enable scene changes with music maintaining momentum. Creative use of lighting enhanced the sets and I especially liked the UV scene which was excellent. There were a few sound effects and sound levels were good with all the cast being heard clearly.

Costumes were relevant to the characters and mainly very colourful. The Dame’s outfits and wigs were quite spectacular and flamboyant. Music was provided by Alex Lawrence at the keyboard with Steph Felton as vocal coach. There was some limited movement on stage in set pieces.

The panto opened to a breezy rendition of ‘Da Do Ron Ron’ involving most of the cast. I loved the antics of Mole, played by Nicola Jaynes and Wart, played by Steph Felton. They were lively and full of energy and delivered so many corny jokes that the audience really responded to them. They often used the front of tabs area to enable set changes. Two young girls played the Babes in the Wood, Erin Stephenson as Tilly and Emily Jaynes as Milly. They worked well together and both had good singing voices. Chris Walsh, as Nurse Nitwit was the perfect Dame, loud and brash and he worked the audience well. He was everything a Dame should be. Well played.

The love birds, Robin Hood, played by Lucie Ellis and Maid Marian, played by Jenna Stephenson were well suited and sang a lovely duet ‘The Best Day of my Life’. Jim Hughes, was the Sheriff of Nottingham and what an evil and sinister character he was. Well portrayed by Jim the audience really responded well to him with plenty of boos and hisses. The outlaws were a motley crew of Little John (Cheryl Regan), Friar Tuck (Matt Stephenson) and Will Scarlett (Noah Stephenson) all acting well in their characters.

Jan Peaston had a niche role as Nausea Nightshade, a floaty sorceress and Richard Cooper was revealed as the King!

There was plenty for the ensemble to do and the pantomime ended with a lively interpretation of ‘Rocking All Over The World.’

Congratulations to Director and Producer Margaret Surrey, aided by her production assistants for her creativity in bringing this script to the stage. Your audience loved it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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