Broadway And Beyond

A show title like Broadway and Beyond promises Glitz and Glamour and that’s exactly what NMTC brought us on this warm April evening. A metaphorical red carpet was rolled out as we arrived with a traditional warm welcome from Maureen and members of the Committee and as we took our seat, the curtain was raised and we saw a stage worthy of the Oscars.

Lovely silver sparkling staging contrasted the classy and subtle drapes and wonderful lighting. Huge congratulations to the creative minds behind this, it looked and worked really well giving the cast plenty of space to work with and with a large cast allowed lots of levels to work on enabling everyone to be seen and heard.

The cast took to their stage ready to deliver a mammoth catalogue of Musical Hits and looked dazzling in their black and gold outfits, these costumes would vary throughout the night creating a great look – I especially enjoyed the Union Jack outfits for the Jubilee section.

The show opened with a section of 6 hits based around The Theatre and Show Business and it was evident how hard the cast had been working on their vocals and harmonies, you all sounded wonderful and despite being outnumbered the male harmonies still managed to come across well.

After a quite static start, the number “One Singular Sensation” gave us our 1st real routine, this was well worked and very effective especially by the 6 ladies on lead. The routines throughout the show were simple yet very effective, congratulations to the Choreographer Jasmine Smith. I do wish there could have been a bit more movement in the evening however with such a jam-packed program I guess that rehearsal time was up against them.

There were some dazzling performances in the evening; Andrea Rhodes continues to impress with her stunning vocals especially in a soulful “Not While I’m Around” from Sweeney Todd; Ruth Asquith gave a beautiful rendition of “Memory” (one of my least favourite songs) but you wowed the audience and me with your perfect pitch and tone; Paul Phillips, Will Jackson and Ian Smith took on the majority of the male solo work and gave us a great mixture of singing, performing and creating a character in their chosen numbers.

There were some brilliant comedy routines in the show, Lucille Skinner with “What Ever Happened to My Part” worked the stage and audience well, Kimmi Chapman and Ian Smith gave a great version of “Anything You Can Do” and Paul Phillips and Kim Boagey gave a soft and warm version of “People Will Say We’re in Love”, what great vocals by the pair.

The end of Act One gave the Medley of the night with a Mary Poppins section, lovely lively songs mixed in with wonderful vocals from the cast and Rebecca Porter in “Feed The Birds” left the audience ready for more by the time we started Act Two and a Phantom medley including a beautiful Lauren Brady solo of “Think Of Me” – wow!

What I really enjoyed in this show was hearing new versions or arrangements of well-known hits, such as The King and I trio, wonderful harmonies from the 3 ladies of songs which are usually mixed duets. It also gives the opportunity to hear less well know songs such as “Far From The Home I love” from Fiddler, a lovely performance Ruth Asquith, very soft and moving.

There were some great powerful hits in the show too. A great routine allowed the 6 of Fiona Cameron, Kimmi Chapman, Emma Gooding, Rebecca Gooding, Sophie McGlynn and Rebecca Porter to show off their vocals and acting abilities in the song, yes you guessed it, “Six”. Sophie and Rebecca had combined earlier in the show for a comical and pitch perfect rendition of “Popular” whilst Fiona Cameron showed off her range and power in “Defying Gravity”, also from Wicked.

It was great to see Northallerton give the spotlight to their Juniors and I loved seeing them have the chance to perform some well worked routines, especially in the Annie Medley, you have some wonderful little stars there Northallerton, especially in Ruby Grimston and Lenisha Rock, and it was brilliant to see them shine.

The production team of Andrea Atkinson Geoff Foxall chose 2 great songs to see the show out, “Spread the Love Around” and “You Can’t Stop the Beat” were great choices. After a long show, the company had amazing energy in the dance routines and were still able to pull off amazing harmonies to finish the show with a bang and they thoroughly deserved the rapturous applause they received.

Well done to the whole production team on giving this cast a chance to put on such a program. I have never heard NMTC sounding so good and praise must go to Geoff for his hard work here, they sounded wonderful against a small but well led orchestra.

With such vocal talent in the group, I am looking forward to Calendar Girls and do not envy anyone having to make casting decisions with such talent available. Thank you for a brilliant evening, you certainly took us to Broadway……… and Beyond.

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