Beauty & The Beast

Opening with a prologue delivered really well by Susan Cunningham as Sacre Bleu and Adama McCullough as The Spirit of the Mirror this gave the audience a very good insight as to what had happened to Prince Claude before he became The Beast.

It was a change from the norm having the prologue instead of the usual opening panto number, however this followed and excellent opener with the dancers from The Sutton School of Performing Arts who delivered the goods all the way through the production.

As we moved into the village square we were introduced to the rest of the characters starting with Franque played effortlessly by David Rogers who was able to get every ounce of pomposity and humour from his character, Franque has a sidekick in the guise of Clochard played by  Danny Brooks who was superb, he was able to deliver the goods to make the audience believe he was a “little dim” and I am sure many of the women wanted to take him home and mother him.

As with all good pantos here we had a larger-than-life dame and James Creegan is as good as you can get. James as Nanny Nightnurse was able to deliver the lines, and many innuendos, with ease, many of them being very tongue in cheek.

Another necessity is of course the “Silly Billy” role, step up Chris Nuttall as Brie, Chris is a well-seasoned actor of this type of character and again I would think many of the more mature ladies on the audience would have wanted to Mother Brie who was usually the butt of Nanny Nightnurse’s jokes, Chris threw himself around the stage and ensured the entire audience was well and truly entertained.

Another character who appeared to be a little “dim” or maybe just a little senile was Professor Phillipe played excellently by Jai Jai Ekins. The Professor is of course Belle’s father.

As everyone knows the main character of this piece is of course Belle who is the Beauty in the title, step up Emily Balmforth who was superb, she was able to sing, dance and act her way through the entire production with ease. Her duet with The Beast, Climb was breathtaking and certainly sent shudders down my spine.

I mentioned The Beast who as we all know has had a spell put on him by the enchantress, Sacre Bleu, this character was in the more than capable hands of Jason Sykes who looked every bit the part with his mask and horns, however just having this make up is not enough for the character alone, you also need someone who can act and sing the part and Jason certainly can. He was able to ensure the audience knew he was a grim character initially but then deliver a warmer, kinder character when he and Belle fell in love.

I mentioned earlier the role of Prince Claude before he became The Beast, this role was put in the hands of Cadee Hawkins who was able to deliver a beautiful dance duet with Belle once the spell had been broken.

When the spell is placed on Prince Claude it is also placed on the palace staff too and here, we had the condiments and cutlery from the table.

All four were able to play their respective characters, Lucy Jinks as Salle, Kate Ellaway as Poivre, Louise Hirst as Fourchette and Lilly Balmforth as Cuillere.

In this show, whether it be a panto or the actual show it is always difficult to know how to play the transformation scene, just as it is in other productions such as Shrek, Cinderella etc. Well, when you have a genius with IT as Dewsbury Collegians have in Jason Sykes you need have no fears as he was able to develop all the videos used as the backcloth and created a perfect transformation much to the delight of the audience. I must also give credit to Jason for all the other stunning video backcloths used in this production, they were excellent.

Any production doesn’t just come together, they take hours and hours of the production team working together to ensure we, the audience get as much enjoyment as possible out of watching the final creation plus the actors on stage also enjoy delivering the final piece.

The production team for this must certainly have burned many hours to be able to deliver the final production, congratulations to Jane Ellaway - Director, Jacques Warlop - MD and Sarah Sutton - Choreographer.

Thank you for a great evening’s entertainment.

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