Cinderella

This year’s offering, CINDERELLA, written by Stephen Duckham and directed by Karen Booth was a really fun-filled family show.  I won’t bother to reiterate the story.  If you don’t know it, you should be ashamed of yourself!

The show got off to an impressive start with Fairy Godmother Dot (Megan Bidecant) using all the fairygodmother.com technology to take on her latest assignment.  Within a couple of minutes Dot had the audience on her side.  Hers was a confident and assured performance throughout.

Suitably lovely as Cinderella, Nikki Dyer was first-rate, she has good stage presence and a lovely voice as well as being a great dancer.   

George Harrison as Buttons was exceptional.  He had energy worthy of two long life batteries and the audience loved him. The more I see of him the more convinced I am that this young man has a bright future on stage whether he chooses the professional or amateur route. 

Jon Walker as Baron Hardup had a difficult on/off role which he coped with nicely although I would have preferred to have heard more variation in the delivery of dialogue.   

Completing this dysfunctional family was Becky Green and Chelsea Booth as ugly sisters Gorgon and Zola and what a pair they were. They made an excellent duo flaunting their ‘beauty’ any chance they got. Every opportunity to interact with the audience was grasped with both hands. A fun duo.   Compliments to these two, together with Cinderella, on the breathtaking The Twelve Days of Christmas song.  This was thoroughly rehearsed (as it needed to be) and had the audience riveted. They didn’t put a foot wrong. It was very impressive indeed.

Away from the Hardup household we had Prince Charming played by the engaging Lacey Kiefer. Ms Kiefer is a promising up-and-coming performer who has a strong voice, heard here at its best.  I would have liked a bit more empathy between the Prince and Dandini but I thought Kieren Francis, although obviously inexperienced, did a pretty good job.  

Charlotte Dockerty and Sue Caller, as the Bailiffs Snatchit and Grabbit, managed their on/off roles well.  We saw both ends of the experience spectrum with this duo which, once the initial nerves were overcome, worked. 

I must extend my compliments to the young chorus members.  They were all excellent throughout. All knew exactly what to do and did it. The singing was very good and their young voices were in tune and mellifluous.  I certainly spotted one or two with obvious stage presence who I will be watching out for in the future.

Elsewhere, the costumes were excellent and the sets bright and colourful: the lighting and sound effects were both very good although a couple of late sound cues on the first night added to the mirth.  

The Band (Chris Nunn, Alan Neale and Peter Theobald) were excellent but having them on stage did cut down on acting and scenery space.  The stage is pretty small anyway which limits anything major in the way of choreography (devised by Nikki Dyer and Becky Green) but everyone dealt with chorus movement extremely well.  

This was a well directed, well paced, well performed show.  The transformation scene was imaginative and worked a treat.  Extra Brownie points from me too for using my favourite Beatles song (Hey Jude) for the sing-a-long 

Director Karen Booth should be justly proud of her cast and production team. This was a great fun panto which played to deservedly full houses.  

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