Cinderella

I was delighted to be back at Rhiwbina Memorial Hall to visit RATS and their latest offering: Cinderella – the pantomime.  It has been 13 years since RATS last did a panto and I’m really hoping they won’t leave it that long to do their next one!  I was greeted with the usual warm welcome from the society and enjoyed meeting the cast before the show.  A lovely bunch!

Set design was simple, yet effective.  It was colourful and worked well to enable action on all parts of the stage.  Scene changes were completed quickly and quietly.   Well done to the stage crew for this!

In the title role of Cinderella, Becki Holder gave an assured performance.  She sang well in the musical numbers and had a nice character throughout.

Aled Jones-Pritchard did a good job as Prince Charming.  He sang well and I enjoyed his interpretation.

Every panto needs a dame and what a dame we had!  Mike Gelder gave us Miss Fanny Fondant.  Mike’s performance was devilishly naughty and very funny.  His crowd work was very good, and I must also congratulate him on the choreography work for some of the numbers.  Well done, Mike; a solid all-round performance.

Jonathan (JB) Herco-Thomas was the lovable Buttons.  He worked hard throughout the performance and had lovely energy on stage.  Good job!

Prince Charming’s sidekick, Dandini, was played by Lucinda Kelly.  Lucinda did a great job.  Lovely character and great vocals.  A genuinely enjoyable performance - well done.

Bethan Horwood was lovely as the fairy godmother.  She completely nailed the character and interacted well with the audience.  Her vocals were strong throughout.  Well played.

No pantomime would be complete without a ‘baddie’ or two.  In this production we were fortunate enough to have three and they were all fabulous!  Lesley Beckett was excellent as the evil stepmother.  She had a great character and worked well with the mean stepsisters Sam and Ella, played by Joshua Neal and Charlotte Charles.  I had previously seen Joshua and Charlotte play opposite each other as Ren and Ariel in Footloose.  They clearly enjoy working together as they both gave terrific performances!  Larger than life, naughty, funny and full of energy.  I really enjoyed what they did and so did the audience.  Well done both!

My congratulations to Amy Perry who played many characters before landing on Squire Jack.  A very hard-working performance, well done!

The small ensemble worked very hard and sang and moved well.  They all seemed to be enjoying themselves and that’s what community theatre is all about!  Well done Ffion Bestwick, Poppy Charles, Helen Harries, Pippa Loader and Catrin McCarthy.

It was lovely to see the hard-working children on stage, some of whom are also members of fellow district 4 society, Suzanne Scale Performing Arts.  This sort of collaboration is fantastic to see.  Well done everyone.

I had a lovely night, packed full of catchy songs, some of which had been cleverly re-written to fit the production.  My congratulations to the production team of Bev Jones, Jo Herco-Thomas, Bethan Horwood and Mike Gelder on a super show.  Well done everyone.  I look forward to seeing you all again soon.

 

The views in this report are solely of the author.

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