Floody Nora

Sam Crawley’s new Jukebox Musical Production was a show inspired by elements of truth with lots of creative licence taken. To me, the production was the story of Noah’s Ark combined with Doctor Doolittle with a little bit of classic pantomime thrown in for good measure. It is evident that Crawley wanted to create some light hearted fun entertainment for both the cast and audience and hiswriting is littered with comedy throughout.

“Floody Nora!” Is set 7000 years in the past at this very location (St Batholomew’s church, Plymouth) where a camp of homosapiens lived. Part of this tribe was Nora, played by Cindy Callendar, a human; but not like all those others who care not for the world aroundthem. Nora hears a tale of a great flood like never seen before from a traveller from ancient grease and tells the tribe who call hercrazy and mock her. Nora wishes she could just speak to the animals as they are kinder and more considerate as she breaks out intoher first song “The Animal Song”. Nora had a pleasing, soft and gentle voice which gave her character a great deal of warmth and helped show her kind nature.

Nora continues her discussion with the audience as to why she prefers the animals and Crowley had carefully considered all of this dialogue which included some very true messages for life and how we must look after the world around us. Nora meets our firstanimal of whom she has found she can miraculously talk to and finds a new friend, Delia the giant Deer played by Tracey Burke.

Delia has some good comic timing in her delivery and worked well with Norah. Delia the deer was feeling quite down and lacking in self confidence and so with a full company number of “What makes youbeautiful” the cast brought her back up and helped her find that self belief. Delia would become the first special guest to join Norahon her not yet built boat. Only 10 days to go before the storm Norah!

Next on our journey we meet Rhian the Woolly Rhino who treated us to a special rendition of “I’m horny”. The costume for this was effective and Faye Hardie provided some nice comedy in her performance. Again this duo worked effectively together. 

Lighting for the performance was simple yet helped to provide colour and contrast to the scenes. There were some technical issues however throughout the show with lighting playing up but the cast dealt with this excellently and pushed on without a pause.

Set was simple throughout which ensured no clutter yet there was plenty to signify where we were. Generally these scenes moved fluidly from one to the next though there were a couple of moments which felt a little clunky. A stagehand extra would help to keep these slick and keep the action moving along. Perhaps it could even be an option to utilise the cast to aid in these larger changes. Thepace throughout the performance was generally fine though there were a few moments where this needed to be picked up in order to maintain the flow throughout.

The Hyenas, played by John Dredge and Annie Owen-North, were a strong and excellent casting whom worked very well together. They provided some excellent comedy to their performances. I absolutely loved the disguise of “Colin the Cave Lion”.

I have to say a huge congratulations on an excellent job to Nora played by Cindy Callendar. Being a cast member with only partial sight she had to be off script very early on in the rehearsal process in order to work on her blocking. I must say it took me until quite some way into act 2 before I even realised that Nora was partially sighted as Crawley had so excellently directed the animal cast to help Nora move around the space and Nora moved with such confidence.

Excellent job to all of you. You should be proud of the performance you put on. I know that your director Sam Crawley certainly is proud of you all.

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