Beauty and the Beast

A pantomime should have at least five things in it, a goodie, a baddie, a dame, a comedy duo and lots of audience participation, and CLOC’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’ certainly had all of these.  Teresa Biddell had led the production team and performers to provide a great evening’s entertainment.  Singing to a small band led by Musical Director, John Jones, the company sang with great voice in the ensemble numbers with some excellent solos. 

Throughout the show there was excellent characterisation by both principals and the enthusiastic ensemble with the strong cast working well together.  The entertaining opening set the scene for a pantomime and allowed some of the younger cast members to hold the stage – a super opportunity which worked well.  Followed by the entrance of Flora, the fairy (Anne-Marie Powell) who had a beautiful singing voice.   Her evil counterpart was Belladonna (Hayley Howen) was a very elegant, but clearly dangerous character who interacted well with the audience.   Belle was played by Sophia Powers who cut just the right balance of ‘princess to be’ and feisty young heroine.  The Prince/Beast, Graham Halliday, had a strong voice and wonderful demeanour in this role of the terrifying Beast with whom the audience need to empathise, well supported by Erin Mooney as Prince Danton.  The very humorous role of Gustave was played by Kian Haden and I loved his macho representations.  This great script took the traditional story of Beauty and the Beast and gave it an entertaining pantomime spin, including the introduction of two comic characters of Marcel Calum Reynolds) and Monique (Karen Whitehouse) who both played their roles in the Beauty Salon with fabulous passion and comic aplomb.  There were great performances from Kevin Astbury-Pemberton as Alphonse, Lee Walker as a very comical Idle Jack and Krystian Wharton as Monsieur Le Fou. I must mention the three brilliant performances by Charlene Walker (Whitney), Hannah Muxlow (Britney) and John Biddell as Madame Fifi.  Whitney and Britney are definitely not pantomime Ugly Sisters and Charlene and Hannah carried off their roles fabulously. 

The role of the Dame is integral to a pantomime and John was wonderful – he didn’t try to feminise the role he was a ‘bloke dressed in a dress’ and held the production together with his comic timing and entertaining engagement with the audience. The costumes were traditionally ‘pantomime’ and very appropriate for the production – I particularly liked the Beast’s costume.  The set was good and suited the venue and was supported by use of good lighting provided by Going Dark Theatrical Services.

Together with the audience, I also enjoyed the UV Scene and the balloons in the audience at the end.  A great addition to the story and enjoyed by young and old. 

Congratulations to everyone involved – a really fun-filled production. 

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