Beauty and the Beast

I do love a pantomime that opens with a big number and this one certainly did. A stage full of lovely young children with happy faces set the mood for the rest of the show.

Beauty (Ellie Jordan) lives with her brother Jaques (John Ealden) and her Ma (Steve Milward) in a small French village and as in many pantomimes they have no money. They have the most wonderful poodle, Felix, (Rob Place) who must be the most entertaining panto character I have seen this season. Together with the help of the village blacksmith Capucine (Ruth Birkett) the family brought us lots of laughs. 

Beauty meets up with the handsome Prince (Nick Howell) and they fall in love but this does not last for long. The wicked and very scary Malabelle (Sally Clegg) changes him into a Beast and he escapes to his castle. When Ma innocently picks one of his roses she has to chose between sending her daughter to live with the Beast or riches. Tricked by Malabelle she takes the riches and Beauty goes to live at the castle. There she is befriended by some lovely 'human 'furniture portrayed by the young girls and a bossy talking clock (Marjorie Inman).

Of course love wins the day and the Beast becomes the Prince again. Malabelle loses her powers and changes into a poodle which works well for Felix.

There were plenty of fun moments all the way through the performance and the cast coped well with one or two first night hitches. The dance numbers were well thought out as there were a lot of children on quite a small stage. They danced beautifully and looked lovely in their costumes. Costumes were excellent throughout and nicely colour co-ordinated for the finale. 

 

We had some lovely singing from both chorus and principals and they were sympathetically accompanied by a small band of musicians.

The sets were nice and simple with some excellent props.

A happy show with plenty of audience participation, well done to everyone.

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