Beauty and The Beast

This adaptation of Beauty and the Beast was an excellent choice for the Digswell Players, with plenty of opportunity to make good use of an abundance of comedy.

Digswell took full advantage, utilizing all that was on offer and then some, with a generous sprinkling of local humor and custard pies to boot.

Principals brought their ‘seasoned’ experience to the fore, bringing energy and high spirits in their own irrepressible way.

Belle (Amber Sparshott) and Prince Louis (Esther Bishop) were well cast and charmed with their gentle presentation. I was delighted to see Ester at last in the role of principal boy and hope that she will develop this panto character for the future.

Chardonnay (Stuart Carnegie) and Lambrini (Kevin Rayment) kept the comedy at the centre of the action, their timing spot on, a great team working together!

Cast a dame who can ‘talk the talk’ and throw in ad-libs at every opportunity and you are on to a winner, the outrageous Dame Dolly (Pip Grey) kept them coming, much to the amusement of the audience.

The Rose Fairy ( Orla Kennedy) sustained her French accent though out and had a good connection with the audience.

Countess Cruella (Adrienne Perry) and her side kick the Dastardly Demon of Digswell (Imogen Carnegie) brought the inevitable altercation between right and wrong to the mix, along with the beast (Simon Parr) whose loud, electronically aided distorted voice, caused a highly charged reaction from several children in the audience, initial shock over, calm was quickly restored!

Jean Claude (Tim Palmer) oozed self-importance and made good use of every part of the stage available to him.

Jacques (Connie Marshall) as second principal boy, showed her strengths in leading the chorus numbers and supporting all members of the cast. Her dialogue with Prince Louis was well paced and diction was good.

The opening of Act 2 was great with many members of the audience joining in with “Hello Dolly”. A wonderful sing-a-long!

Musical numbers were well chosen and the small band played well. On occasion it seemed a little loud but that may have seemed so from where I was sitting.

The scene in the beauty parlour was great fun with lots of foam and crazy string but it needed to be slicker and dialogue needed to be more secure in order to achieve the pace needed for spontaneous slapstick.

I liked the idea of the moving suit of armour in the castle instead of a skeleton, great fun.

Lighting was well positioned and costumes appropriate although I would have liked to have seen Belle in tights not black socks throughout. Makeup for the OTT characters was good but for mere mortals faces were very pale and the stage lighting drained the skin of colour.

Choreography was simple yet perfect for the size of stage and the various abilities of the cast. No one looked out of place or awkward.

This production was jam packed with entertainment, enough to please the most stalwart of pantomime lovers. Local village cast, local village jokes and a local village audience all went to make up a great afternoon of entertainment.

Thank you for your hospitality  - Vicki Avery District 9

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