Carousel

Knowing the limitations of space back stage and onstage at this theatre, I was intrigued to see how Director Carol Gannaway coped with this production.  It was very well produced and the use of various cloths to cover the major scene changes worked perfectly.  I am a fan of Paul Lazell’s scenery and it was lovely to see that Carol had managed to get such a lot of it onstage. 

The Principals were all good, Amy Welton (Julie Jordan) has a beautiful singing voice which is always a pleasure to listen to.  Unfortunately, Will Trapp (Billy Bigelow) had been suffering from a really bad chest infection before the show and this clearly affected his singing range, mainly in the higher notes.   Such a shame as his characterisation was excellent.   I look forward to seeing him in another role when he is fully recovered.  I am full of admiration when performers carry on despite such problems, not many professionals would!   Kirsty Elliott (Carrie Pipperidge) was a delight to watch, a lovely characterisation.  Sue Elliott also produced a nice portrayal of the character of Mrs Mullin.

There are a lot of secondary principals in this show and I simply do not have the space to credit them all, however they all contributed well to the overall performance and made the productions believable and entertaining.  I would, however, commend Simon Cook on his performance as Mr Snow and Iain Johnson as a particularly evil Jigger Craigin.

The Snow children were delightful and added to the attractive performance.  A lovely cameo role for Luke Jackson as Enoch Snow Junior, well done.  Evie Cameron was good as Louise Bigelow, beautiful dancing!

There were (by my count) 27 adult performers in this show.  That’s a lot of people to have on this relatively small stage.  And yet I never felt that it was over crowded.

The band was small but provided a lovely sound to support the company, perfect in the theatre space.

We really enjoyed the production, well done to all.

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