Dick Whittington

As always it was a pleasure to join the local audience at the Christchurch Hall to see Dick Whittington; the latest pantomime production for Christchurch Music Society, with two members of the society taking on the role of Co- Director for their Pantomime debut. My congratulations to Pete Routley and Sarah Fradd.

The man himself, Dick Whittington was in this production played by a man. Ben Middleton, no stranger to the Christchurch stage gave us the hero of the hour and still managed the occasional thigh slap no panto should be without.

The lovely Alice Fitzwarren played by Elysia Dimitrakis gave a good performance, never losing her smile and clearly enjoying the performance.

Where would Dick Whittington be without his” Cat”. An excellent performance from Sarah Purnell-Davis as Tommy the Cat. Great characterisation and movement around the stage in a role that can be very underestimated in its importance. Very well done.

Holly Hayward taking on the role of Idle Jack, gave a lovely performance. Playing to her strengths with good comic timing and always expressive in facial and body movement. Lovely rapport with the audience.

A panto wouldn’t be a panto without the good and evil and Fairy Bowbells played by Skye Middleton and King Rat played by Richard Deacon gave us both.  Skye made a picture-perfect fairy but always with a bite and Richard played the bad guy for all it was worth. No shortage of boos and jeers when he was around.

Sara the Cook [Dame] played by Aaron Smith quite defies description. A good-looking dame with personality to spare and a wicked sense of humour that you were never sure was in the script. He/she made the stage their own. Bravo.

Alderman Fitzwarren/ Captain Horatio Fitzwarren played by Steve Duthie gave a perfect performance of the confused shop keeper come Sea Captain. I was a little confused too, but it didn’t seem to matter, and they all lived happily ever after.

The empress of Morocco played by Kate Summers exploded on to the scene in glorious colour and in true panto style joined a very enthusiastic cast for a rousing finale of “Walking on Sunshine”. 

My congratulations to you all in maintaining the Pantomime tradition in an audience pleasing performance that we all hope will continue.

 

The views in this report are solely of the author.

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