Dick Whittington
Information
- Date
- 20th December 2012
- Society
- The Preston Musical Comedy Society
- Venue
- Preston Playhouse
- Type of Production
- Pantomime
- Director
- Cheryl Nicholls & Julie Oldfield
- Musical Director
- Dave Thomas
- Choreographer
- Amanda Rogers
Pantomime, is often thought of as a quintessentially British performance media, with its roots in the subversive antics of the commedia dell’ arte and perhaps medieval mummer’s entertainments. It has been transformed over a long period into today’s rather curious family entertainment. We are familiar with such conventions as swapped gender roles with a man playing the dame – and the principal boy always a girl (slap a my thighs) with double entendre for the adults and revolving humour for the children. This was very much a traditional pantomime – and it must be said that the children in the audience had a ball – the adults enjoyed it too!
The opening set was great – although the house fronts on the flats were perhaps a little too striking for usage throughout the show. Lighting was superb and showed off the wonderfully colourful costumes very well. Live music was very ably provided by a trio of keyboard, drums and bass guitar.
There were some really good characterisations –everyone in the audience loudly booed (every panto villain’s applause) King Rat and cheerfully shouted with great gusto to Idle Jack to ‘Pull his Socks up’. I was slightly disappointed that I did not catch a fair amount of the dialogue and am still unsure if it was because it was rushed or the cockney accents or a mixture of both. That however was absolutely not important to the children in the audience who cheered, booed and hissed their way through the evening.
There were some very good balances of voices in the singing, everyone had lots of smiles and appeared to be having almost as much fun as the audience – always a bonus! It was not over choreographed and the dancers added to the general happy feel of the whole production.
It was exactly what a pantomime should be (apart from the community song which I did not know at all – and the youngsters did not appear to know it either!) lots of shouting out and hissing, much laughter and a few groans – just what you want from a panto – well done to everyone connected with this truly traditional family entertainment – very many and well deserved congratulations on full houses every night – what an achievement – and, of course, thank you for such a warm and friendly welcome.
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