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Dick Whittington

Author: Richard Fitt

Information

Date
9th December 2021
Society
Catworth Amateur Theatrical Society (CATS)
Venue
Catworth Village Hall
Type of Production
Pantomime
Director
Julie Daniel and Anne Allured,
Musical Director
Gerald Ward

Well that was certainly a different plot, Dick Wittington on a sea voyage, shipwrecked in Morocco and ending up rescuing and then being honoured by the sultan for saving the day. An interesting variation by the playwright.

The CATS pantomime is always great fun, a pure grass roots village hall affair on a small stage and, usually, home written. Sadly, this year the first night was a more subdued affair, with a brought inscript and with spread out seating arrangement and thus a smaller more subdued, but still appreciative audience. Over all four performances I learn that attendance nearly equalled the production record for this group suggesting an underlying demand for live drama.

The stage set by Andrew Moore and Steven Cawdell and constructed with the additional help of Jim Daniel, Mike Brazel, Paul Goodyer, Malcolm Allured, Scott Millington and Paul Murphy was a clever arrangement of folding flats to depict the Alderman’s house to the rear and his sweet shop to stage right which changed into a country road to the rear, and a view from the ship stage right. The painting of it was an artform in its own right. All neatly changed by the stage crew as required. There was however a wonderful moment when one of the flats was incorrectly set and the cast themselves changed it with some brilliant quips, to the great amusement of all. Hope they kept that in for the rest of the run, it was priceless!

The lighting by Paul Murphy (Joe Daniel on Saturday} washed the stage to full effect and finished the job perfectly.Costumes by Cath Goodyer, Jenny Pawling and Belinda Moore, and hair and makeup by Charlotte Wilson, Emma McCreath and Justine Hughes were spot on for each character. The Dame’s costumes were of course superbly OTT with neat touches such as red bloomers with ‘Rear’ embroidered on in the appropriate place. The baddy, Queen Rat had a marvellous rat’s tail and not to forget the super
cat’s costume and the makeup for the rats. And one of the best costumes was the sultan himself.

The music was supplied by Gerald Ward on keyboards and Steve Kaye on guitar. Front of House coped with the measures necessary to counter Covid, Sue Ward and her team of Barbara Cawdell, Lynette Grantham and Belinda Moore working tirelessly to keep the audience masked, fed and served with drinks from the bar.

For our actors, Jayne Kaye gave it her all and had us hissing and booing with an evil smile, whilst Rachel McCreath tried to reign her in as our good Fairy Bow Bells. Our heroine, Alice Fitzwarren, played by Vicky Ivell had a lovely innocent demure smile throughout. Nick Graham as her father Alderman Fitzwarren tried to bring gravitas and order to proceedings, failing miserably and hilariously as he took drill on deck for the whole cast. The most bubbly character in the cast who always raised the volume whenever he appeared was Jeff Knott as our buttons character, Idle Jack, Then we come to our Dame, Sarah The Cook played by Paul Goodyer, displaying not a bad pair of legs in a short dress and tights and making the most of every quip, and setting up an obvious friend in the audience, someone called Tom to be the butt of a lot of jokes. Very funny and some excellent ad libs.  Our hero, played by Pippa Ellson swashbuckled to victory, accompanied by ‘his’ Cat, Liz Murphy seeing off the rats, Ken Payne, Sarah Postins and Hannah Carr in a cleverly choreographed fight by Pam Wardle and of course ending up with our heroine, Alice, albeit to the slight disappointment of Idle Jack.

One wonderful little scene, which I was added at the suggestion of Hannah Carr was when the rats came onto the stage and setup a picnic, only to be thwarted by the stage crew who quickly shoed them off the stage. Highly amusing, nice touch!

Admittedly this was the first night, and I always think its unfair for NODA to turn up on the first night, but unfortunately it was unavoidable on this occasion, but I do think the play could have done with a few more rehearsals as the prompt, Kate Wilson, was clearly needed on several occasions, entrances were a little slow at times and this did have a knock on effect on the pace. That aside, well done to Directors Julie Daniel and Anne Allured, who had clearly put in an awful lot of hard work to get this show off the ground in what we all know to be extremely challenging times.

Village hall panto is alive and well and living in Catworth.

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