Beauty and the Beast

A tale as old as time Beauty and the Beast the Disney classic is a tremendously hard show for any amateur society to produce so congratulations to Letchworth Arcardians for a wonderful production.

I felt the choreography was simple, but everything was in time, but I walked out thinking that the pictures created at the end of the numbers were excellent and the cup work in Gaston was innovative and a great inclusion.

Hannah Long had the task of conducting what is a tricky and very well known and loved score, what a super orchestra, well conducted and the levels between singers and band were outstanding, I mention this because this is a hard thing to achieve so well done!

Sophie Walker played Belle, she was fantastic, flawless vocals and she played this iconic role with confidence and charisma.

Harry Pearce as The Beast tried incredibly hard to give off the animalistic, bitter qualities that The Beast needs, he did achieve this at times, however his stance at times looked uncomfortable and the hired set meant he was restricted with movement.

Gaston was played by Elliott Bunker and he was outstanding, he truly took on the role off the arrogant alpha male with gusto, he was big, bold and charismatic, and the song “Gaston” was a real highlight. Mark Savage was a wonderful sidekick as LeFou,

Cogsworth (Robert Driver) and Lumiere (Ben Austin) were both characterised well, Cogsworth was wound up and vocally Robert made sure his voice was the same the whole way through, which is more difficult than it sounds.  Ben’s French accent was very good, and I was impressed he sang in the accent as well.  Both Ben and Robert had the characterisation perfectly it would have been nice if those characterisations had been slightly bigger, and larger than life.  Lydia Tickner as Babette also had lovely characterisation and her work with Ben as Lumiere was lovely, again though I did feel those lovely characterisations needed to be slightly bigger. 

I thought Mrs Potts (Adele Walker) was charming and her rendition of Beauty and the Beast was lovely and endearing. Jessica Cowie as Chip was also great, Jessica and Adele made a lovely pairing.  Stephanie Seal as Madame de la Grande Bouche completed the enchanted characters, she again had lovely characterisation, and in the Home tag she showed she had a lovely voice as well.

Gilly Mackilligan, Rachel Bloomfield, Hannah Juggins and Lucy Walker were the dancers or the Les Filles de la Ville and Wolves.  All four worked well together and they lifted all the numbers they were in, some beautiful facial expressions, and great dancing.

The set I believe is a tale of two things, the hired set, and the built set.  Following a conversation with the society I learnt, which sections of the set were built and what was hired.  The built parts of the set, for example, Belle’s cottage, The bar used for Gaston and Maurice’s invention were lovely and worked really well, and were really impressive, however the The Beasts castle which was hired looked very restrictive especially the level, which had the rose on, the fight between Gaston and The Beast, looked awkward and it was not because of anything that was set or choreographed it was simply a lack of space.  The rose, which is the centre piece was stunning, one of the best I have seen, it looked real.

The lighting was effective, and I really liked some of the subtle things, such as the lights following the enchanted characters around the castle when they went on the tour this was a nice touch.  An audience can be very forgiving, and I do believe that black outs for scene changes are not necessary, going to blue or doing changes in front of the audience are acceptable, especially when they were as slick as they were in this performance.

The costumes were stunning! Jacquie Maddison and her team should be incredibly proud of what they achieved.  Costumes for this show are important and every costume was well thought out, the little details of the flower on the plates and napkins in “Be Our Guest”, were so clever, and then there is Belle’s yellow iconic dress, this was beautiful and the fact that it was made makes it even more special.  I cannot express how good the costumes were, and I thank the society for allowing me to visit 6 weeks before the production to have an insight into the making of the costumes as well as to sit in on a rehearsal.  A huge congratulations.

Thank you to Simon and the Front of house team for their hospitality.  I thoroughly enjoyed my evening and I look forward to coming back.

Scott Welch

NODA Representative - NODA East District 9

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