Forty Fabulous Years

What a treat to be entertained with the Manifest’s celebrations of 40 years providing music and drama in this lovely little theatre.

Directed and compered by Kerry King who took us through memories of shows from 1978 to the present time. It was a potpourri of songs,duets,duologue’s monologue’s and fun from start to finish.

The choice of which numbers to perform must have been quite difficult with this great span of years, but how good it was to have some original cast involved and on stage for the show.

Such a variety of songs etc from so many performances all with fond memories for all involved.

The programme listed all the numbers, but did not give credits with performers names ,which makes mentioning them all individually difficult but I feel I must just pick out a few “star” performances in a show where all the cast on stage were “stars”.I loved Adrian and Val’s “Sweeney Todd”. Gordon,Terry and Derek in “Busy Doing Nothing” were really funny, and all the numbers in “O What a Lovely War” were great.

 Paul’s Monologue as Mickey in “Blood Brothers” was superb.

Alan and company in “Allo “Allo” very well done again, all did so well and again not forgetting Paul’s Officer Crabtree.”Veery wheell doon”!!!

“I Remember it Well” with Val and Mike brought back happy memories to me, and Nigel’s” Albert the Lion” was really well presented.

In some of the full chorus numbers I would have liked the tempo to have slowed down a touch, i.e “Sunrise Sunset, As Long as he Needs Me”, and “So Long Farewell”, with the children, making the songs rather more meaningful,but truly a great performance all round from a cast obviously enjoying it all.It was good to see the children involved in this show.

Well directed by Kerry and Music with Patience.Lovely costumes,very quick changes from the crew between numbers which was good, and the titles of shows on the back cloth added a good feature.

Lighting and sound as always very good and a great credit to you all.

A friendly welcome, and chats with several people which was appreciated.

I hope that the Manifest Theatre Group will be providing us with many more shows for many years to come. Well done to you all.

 

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