Beauty and the Beast - The Pantomime

Perryway players and livewire

Beauty and the Beast – The Pantomime

Cadbury Hall, Frampton on Severn                                                 January 6th 2018

Director: Craig Hunt                    Choreographer: Nathan French   

This was an interesting retelling of the story, which had been adapted well so that all the elements of Pantomime had been included without losing the essence of the Tale.  The opening was very effective with the dance behind the gauze during the overture settling us into a Fairy Tale.  Then the opening set of the village of Petit Pois was revealed and the action started, but everyone was speaking in French, and so The Rose Fairy came to our aid by casting a spell.  After several attempts she eventually found a spell to make them speak an English we all understood.  As I have come to expect from this company, all the sets were well designed, constructed, painted and dressed, taking us to the various locations.  Technically it was an excellent production, the graphics and projections added greatly to the show. The gauze was very well lit which enabled it to dissolve well, and to be used for the really effective projections including the naming of the locations, which I really liked. The snowstorm, and castle interiors were extremely good.  There were some very good well-chosen sound effects.  As with any show, but particularly with Pantomime, the costumes are important, and the wardrobe team had worked hard to produce some lovely outfits, particularly for Prince Louis, Jacques, Countess Cruella, Belle, the Suit of Armour and the children’s outfits for the party.

The choice of music was interesting with a mixture of modern and older numbers.  This is an acoustic venue with taped music and occasionally the backing music was overpowering the voices, especially the young performers.  Choreographer Nathan French had devised some lovely, lively routines, which, suited the young performers well, and he was able to showcase his own talents on stage.  The snowflake dance was lovely.  The idea of Beauty and the Beast dancing the length of the auditorium was charming and was appreciated by the audience. The show had been well cast with strong characterization.  Everyone knew what was expected of him or her and performed confidently.  The various groups of characters worked well together.

Director Craig Hunt had worked incredibly hard on this Pantomime as it was his directorial debut and he also played the Dame, this was not the original intention but unforeseen circumstances led to it.  He had good support from the cast and crew, but there were a couple of places where the less experienced members of cast seemed to lack direction.  There were lots of good ideas, which were well delivered.  The Interviews at the beginning were a nice idea, but the evening I saw the Pantomime I do not think many people were taking that much notice, as they were trying to settle themselves with drinks and sweets, as there were a lot of children in the audience.  Perhaps this would be more in keeping for the play.  The transformation back to the Prince was cleverly done.  The final song was very well sung and left the audience wanting more.  There were certainly many smiling faces and happy people as they left the Hall.

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