CAMELOT – A FAMILY PANTOMIME (TO THE MUSIC OF QUEEN)

Irchester Players' annual pantomime “Camelot” is an original script by Tom Spencer, the storyline is woven around the tales of King Arthur and the characters of Camelot and features the music of rock band Queen. This was a very ambitious project to embark on and personally I am not sure it worked as a pantomime. The writer, Tom Spencer, also directed the production.The staging was good and it had a good pace throughout. The musical direction from Rachael Bass and Amanda Spence was excellent and the four-piece band who accompanied the cast was amazing, some of the performers managed the difficult Queen numbers better than others; the full company numbers were all very good. It is not clear from the programme who the choreographer was, but this was mostly quite good, the fight scenes were all very well staged and exciting to watch. The twelve principals all performed their roles very well and were backed by an enthusiastic ensemble, a troupe of dancers and the Irchester Players' Youth. The set and props for Camelot was outstanding and were the best I have ever seen for an amateur pantomime! Congratulations to the designers and builders of the set, it was truly amazing. The costumes were all excellent, well made and authentic. The make-up and wigs were very good too. The lighting and sound quality was excellent throughout the evening. On the whole this was a good effort from a first time pantomime author; I would suggest he looks at the basic pantomime format. I personally do not think it was a good idea to have the dame as a “baddie”, as you can lose a lot of scope for some really good humour.

Thank you to Irchester Players for their wonderful hospitality and a very pleasant evening.

CAROLINE JERVIS                                                                                                                                     NODA EAST MIDLANDS DISTRICT 7 REPRESENTATIVE.

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