Beauty and the Beast

I always have high expectations and look forward to the CADOS  Pantomime each year  as they have allot to live up to with their record of excellent Pantomimes of the past, and I am very pleased to say these expectations  were more than met once again, with their very outstanding funny 2018 production of “Beauty and the Beast” written by L.M. Rynn

There was an expert production team  which included  Director Zoe Jones, Producer and Choreographer Rebecca Dickinson, assistant Choreographer.Cara Jones and Musical Director Amy Hardcastle who encouraged the cast to produce some outstanding performances, all acting and singing well with confidence to backing tracks which worked very well. The talented cast included Lucy Aspinall in the iconic role of Belle, Lucy gave a  really strong performance  and produced a slightly different interpretation of this well known character, which was more cheeky and fun loving  than usual, I enjoyed  this interpretation very much. She was nicely complemented by Lucas Burns who gave a very good performance as the Prince who was turned into a Beast by a Wicked Witch played  excellently with wicked malevolence  and the help of a great nose by Kim Brookfield and Debbie Garrett was just right as her nemesis the lovely good fairy Snowy White. Belle’s Papa David Hartley was very fatherly and had a good rapport with Lucy as Belle. I always look forward to see what quirky characters CADOS will come up with and this year I wasn’t disappointed as we had Tess Lucas as the Front- End and Cassandra Moon as the Back-End of a horse, who were in fact two actors pretending to be a horse, however the other characters in the Pantomime were not aware of this fact, resulting in some excellent comedy moments. Another really good comedy duo were Alan Levesley as Jean,  who thought Belle should marry him, he was partnered by James Clow as David, they also had a good rapport with the audience and worked very well together. There was  more comedy  from the Castle Cook the indomitable  Mrs Spout played by Steven Catterall, he had excellent natural comic timing and a good relationship with the audience, he was also very good at ad-libbing when the unexpected happened. There were entertaining  comedic performances  from  other castle and village inhabitants these were Natalie Aspinall as Yvette and Amber Tabiner as Mimi, and then we have Mike Taylor as the Barman.The chorus of junior and senior dancers all performed the lively up to date choreography expertly with lots of enthusiasm and supported the principle cast very well, they looked as if they were really enjoying themselves.The well designed and built castle set was effective and looked authentic, making maximum use of the stage area, congratulations  to set designer and stage manager Michael Taylor and his team of set builders and stage crew for all their had work and efficient scene changes. Costumes by Sandra Dickinson were as usual very colourful, and looked good, allot of thought  and hard work had gone into getting them just right, and along with props, and excellent technical input from  both the Sound and Lighting teams added to the success  and the general feel of this production.
 Just a constructive observation and in no way is it a criticism,  the mask that Lucas wore looked the part, but because it was a full mask it didn’t move and we could not see his eyes just two black holes, and we didn’t see any facial expressions  and it made his voice sound a little muffled.. I do understand that because of the transformation scene it may have been difficult to use makeup.or a half mask. In a way this is a complement to Lucas as we had to rely on his dialogue  and acting to understand what his character was feeling.

 Very well done to everyone involved in bringing this outstanding production to the stage, as I always say the measure of a good pantomime is the reaction of the audience and there were plenty of laughs, boos, shouting and clapping on the evening I visited this production. Thank you very much for inviting us, we had a lovely time.

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