Beauty and the Beast

This was the full production of The Broadway Musical, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast from CTC’s senior group aged between 14 and 21, involving a total of fifty students. It was the first time CTC had performed at The Theatre Royal, a Grade 1 listed, beautifully restored Regency building and the first time they had used a projected digital backcloth featuring some special effects which looked absolutely stunning.

This young and talented cast are amazing, full of energy and enthusiasm, and were clearly enjoying being part of this classic production. Belle played by Robyn Cable demonstrated both warmth and compassion in her role with a beautiful singing voice.  Her father, Maurice (Charlie Bowden-Smith) came across well as the eccentric inventor, I loved his transport!  Freddie Idehen was the arrogant Gaston, he showed us great athleticism and dancing prowess and the boy can sing, definitely one to look out for in the future.  His partnership with Lefou worked well with Ethan Willets’ great acting skills shining through along with the physicality he brought to the role. Evie Capon was Mrs Potts capturing the character perfectly and giving a quality performance with her singing of the title song.  Harry Butcher, again a very physical performance injected good measures of comedy into the role of the flamboyant Lumiere.  The other enchanted objects in the Castle were Tobias Bullock as Cogsworth, Lara van Doorn as Babette, and Jessica Turpin as Madame all giving excellent supportive character roles. Sylvie Jameson  was the delightful Chip in the very effectively designed  Tea Cup.  Last but not least we see Wilfred Kemsley as the magnificent Beast. He gave an extremely confident and memorable performance, demonstrating his constantly changing personality extremely effectively as the show progressed. 

There were some great performances from all the very believable characters who gave terrific support to the leads, along with all the ensemble and dancers.  The standard of singing was excellent along with some innovative choreography producing some absolutely magical scenes particularly in the full cast’s  big number of “Be our Guest”.  All the costumes were fabulous especially those of the enchanted objects in the castle which were visually fantastic. The set changes were efficient with the help of the projected backcloths. The lighting was very effective and the sound was good, although occasionally the levels were slightly off.    

This show is a major challenge to stage and certainly quite an achievement with such a large cast. The audience were very appreciative and gave the cast a well deserved standing ovation. Well done to Bridie, (this being one of her favourite shows), all the cast and all the help from the numerous production team. Thank you for an extremely enjoyable evening.

 Catherine Dixey. NODA East Representative District E12

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