Dick Whittington

Ingleton Theatre Group's production for 2024 was that old panto staple, Dick Wittington, written by Sue Mosley. 

Dick, played earnestly by Emily Coates and his feline friend Tommy (Rebecca Pickup) are a tad bored with the humdrum life of being a villager, and set off on a trek for new adventures to London..... realising it's a little further than they thought, they decide to turn back, when suddenly, as if by magic, a fortune teller named Bowbellas (Shelagh Fagan) tells them to carry on, as she's seen the future, and it is indeed bright for the pair. 

The story unfolds from here, and veers off in a few directions, cities, docks, galleons and palaces with a wonderful ultra-violet scene somewhere between them all.

With every good pantomime, you have to have great goodies, and even greater baddies- in Dick Whittington, this is in the form of  the evil King Rat played by Chris Beesley. Chris worked hard at getting the audience to dislike him, and succeeded with aplomb-there were obviously friends and family in as he got more boos than any other baddie I'd seen in a long while.

Unknown to Dick, King Rat is hot on his heels on their trip to London, and has no doubt got nefarious deeds in store for him.

This then introduced some of the other characters- Alderman Fitzwarren, Polly and 'Slack' Jack (his faithful servants) and his beautiful daughter Alice into the fray. The above all well played by Debbie Akrigg, Wendy Moorhouse, Tracey Joel.

 

I could list every character and performer here, but will probably end up missing somebody out- safe to say, every single performer onstage performed well.

 

A shout out though, does go to Carl Lis (normally Dame) in the role of Colin- scene stealer extrordinaire, popping up Hitchcock-like in in virtually every scene- don't know how, but it just 'worked'. Well done.

As with all pantomimes, the hero is put through the wringer until everyone ends up with their happy ever after.

Chorus numbers were delivered with conviction- simple and effective choreography being the order of the day- simple enough for the less able dancers to shine, but effective enough to make the numbers interesting to the audience.

Staging was really good. As usual, the cloths and set provided/painted by the company. What always sets this company out from any other are the UV scenes- these are always of an incredibly high standard- a lot of thought goes into these, and it shows.

It always amazes me how some societies manage to put quality productions on, especially in community halls. Ingleton Theatre Group provides local panto for local people, and makes no apology for doing so- this makes it all the better for an invited audience, cheers to that.

Once again, the production team of Ellie Brown (Choreographer), Wendy Moorhouse (Singing Coordinator) and Liz Cartmell (Director) provided a great evenings entertainment.

 

Thank you Ingleton, for your invitation and hospitality.

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