Beauty and the Beast

BEAUTY & The Beast is a new interpretation of the story and written by Helen Gard and Jo Stokes.    It mixes the traditional story of Beauty and the Beast with a touch of Cinderella and has a Lord in search of a bride (as well as Prince also looking for love), a pair of arguing and ugly sisters, a fairy and the audience’s friends but this time in the form of Itch and Stoke.  There’s dancing and singing, baddies and goodies and general mayhem along the way to the satisfying conclusion.

The sets were excellent and very realistically created with beautifully painted flats, specially The Rose Garden which brought a gasp of admiration. The set dressings were all appropriate and well chosen and the props were well used by the cast.   The Rose was particularly effective.

The make-up was excellent.   The fairy’s hair and make-up was particularly stunning and contrasted well with Prosecco and Chardonnay’s ‘Ugly Sisters’.  There were some great wigs and the Beast’s transformation was effective.  

The costumes were fantastic, of high quality and well fitting.  There was great attention to detail.  Chardonnay and Prosecco had suitably outlandish outfits and wore them with a flourish. The Prince and The Lord’s costumes were particularly impressive added to their status and presence.   Overall the costumes were bold but well balanced. This was a large cast with a variety of costumes and numerous changes.  It was obvious a lot of thought and hard work had gone into creating the look.  

The lighting was effective throughout and well controlled.  The sound was good, the voices blending well with the music enabling every word to be heard clearly.  Some of the most memorable songs/dances were “Wake Up it’s a Beautiful Morning”, “Never Gonna Give you Up” and “Be Our Guest” which was particularly well choreographed by Sam Rodd and went down well with the audience.    

Directed by Vicky Rodd and produced by her, Andrew Tollyfield and Peter O’Keefe, panto at its happiest.  The comic banter between Kate McMorrow (as Itch) and Sian Rodd was terrific and they seemed genuinely happy to sing unaccompanied (on occasion) and this was hugely successful.  Mark D’Agostino (as Prosecco) and Therese Godfrey (as Chardonnay) bounced off each other brilliantly. The dancers were all utterly delightful. Lydia Tugudda was bursting with confidence as Lord Malevolance and Sam Rodd as Prince/Beast showed great maturity in his performance transforming from bold and boastful to thoughtful and kind when he realised his love for Belle; a touching performance from Ellie East.  There were no weak links in this show with every one of the cast working together to produce a show with such sparkle.  It was particularly pleasing to see so many young principals on the stage as well as some seasoned performers.   

Well done to all at Micheldever for sending everyone home with smiles on their faces.

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.