Cinderella

Another great set for this group with the main stage doubling up as the home of Cinderella and Charming Castle, with swinging door bell and trap door. Steve Davis has an excellent cast for this panto written by David Swan. The basic story is there but it has a mixture of witches and Halloween theme to it. There are some funny bits to it and all the traditional pantomime fun. Lots of colourful costumes.

Cinderella (Donna West) is great in the part and the audience are behind her from the start, and she works well with Buttons (Ian Jenkins) who keeps up the pace and has a lot of the jokes. Charming (Helen Young) and Dandini (Caleb Brading-Ingram) had good stage presence and worked well together.

The witch/wicked stepmother Louise Dibden had the audience booing in all the right places together with her sidekicks Tilly Emm (Treat) and (Trick) this night played by Stevie Parker who did an excellent job of standing in due to illness.

The ugly sisters Neville Green (Potterina) and Richard Barnett (Lavatrina) had some great lines together with funny slapstick scenes and some great costumes they were suitably nasty to Cinders. John Gardner played Cinders father and Hannah Marks (Wanda) was the fairy godmother who came to the rescue. Charlotte Brown was (Pongo) the pig.

The younger members on stage and the adult chorus all danced and sang very well and were enjoying every minute, which came over and was nice to see. The songs were from the 50’s and 60’s and all well known. I liked the transformation scene and Cinders wearing glasses then having to see through jam jars was fun.  Lots of twists and turns along the way kept the story moving.

Well done to everyone involved - a different version of the story that worked very well. 

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