Camelot The Panto

It is refreshing to see a pantomime that is a bit different from the normal run of the mill storylines. Swanmore Amateur Dramatic Society have chosen Camelot the Panto this year, which mixes Arthurian legend with the usual panto ingredients and characters, and bakes up a veritable feast of pre-Christmas enjoyment.

Lesley Wilson played the principle baddie, Morgan Le Fay, with just the right amount of malice to garner her fair share of boos and hisses from the audience and, despite his youth, Liam Gray as trainee-baddie, Valerin the Viscous, more than held his own in the boo and hiss stakes and is undoubtedly a talent to watch for the future. Annie Dillon and Danny Jeffs as Guinevere and Arthur are equally talented and shared a beautiful duet in the second act, which alone made the panto worth coming to see.

Roger Minors, the court jester Laughalot, and David Norster as the dame, Constance Clutterbottom, provide a lot of the humour in the show. They are obviously past masters at getting the audience whipped up and they kept the action moving along at a nice pace. Caroline Powell deserves a special mention for, as well as being the long-suffering choreographer for the show, she was suffering for her art inside a furry costume, giving a very sweet portrayal of a giant teddy bear – guaranteed to get some aahs from audience members young and old.

The large chorus provided very colourful, tuneful and engaged support to the principles and it was really encouraging to see quite a lot of younger people amongst them, some taking on the minor roles with great confidence and stage presence.

The King Arthur theme would prove quite a challenge to most companies when it comes to sourcing costumes, but Swanmore met this challenge with great style. Full marks to the wardrobe department (Rose Jeffery, Brenda Austin and Lesley Preedy) for clothing a large cast with stunning and colourful costumes – the best I’ve seen in an amateur production in a long time.

The set was relatively simple and changed smoothly by the crew, and I was most impressed by the excellent props – a talking snake and severed head, massive spiders dangling from the ceiling and a book that has flames coming out it when opened –hot stuff – to mention just a few. They demonstrate that as much care and attention to detail was taken backstage as went into directing the actors onstage.

Congratulations to director Lesley Preedy and her vibrant company for providing such a warm and cheering evening’s entertainment on a wet and windy evening. I’m sure the large audience went home well satisfied.

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