Beauty and the Beast by John Hewer

Panto time again!  Peacehaven always produce my first panto as all the others in my area are after Christmas, so it’s nice to have a festive offering in December.

Beauty and the Beast is such a lovely story and I wondered how it would translate into panto, but it was all there, with a lot of fun thrown in and some lovely characters with Mandie Fairhall leading the way as Belle Pettle acting well and using her lovely voice to great effect, accompanied by her faithful horse Concorde, played with verve by Michelle Roman.  Georgina Bancroft played the Prince who was turned into a Beast for being very inhospitable to a visitor with magic powers and then turned back into a Prince by the love of Belle, managing the pathos of the part along the way.  Well done.

Fairy Wayward in her various disguises was played by Lynn Enever with energy and the rest of the Pettle family consisted of Ernest, father and failed inventor (Dave Whatman) and Beatrice, Belle’s stepsister played by Judith Foot who made the most of this part as the baddie and who received some well deserved boos!  Zoe Giles was the Dame, Susan Preem who made a “su preem” job of this part particularly as she took the role at very short notice due to Tony Garwood’s injury.  Do hope you are recovering Tony.

Jenny Day and Roni Bromley had us all in stitches as Brigette and Gilette, the two French Maids.  Great fun!  Michael Nash as Richard Entwhistle, Claire Mullan as Barclay Burke and Christine Twibill as Clarence Clanger/Narrator all helped a great deal with the fun.  Just a little note for those in the chorus – there weren’t many of you but do remember to smile when necessary as most of the action was very funny!

As always the Harlequin Dancers added glamour and excellent dancing to the proceedings.

The programme was well presented and it was nice to see everyone’s smiling faces! 

Well done to all involved with either direction, choreography, scenery (which although minimal gave such a good indication of where the action was going), costumes or any of the many other jobs that have to be done to get a production on stage.

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