Frozen Jnr

I could not be more delighted to welcome Centre Stage North East back to our NODA family.  Such an amazing group, teaching real applicable skills to Youth in their membership, being alive and teaching for 30 years in the area.  There are so many of us adults in the theatre world can attribute their growth and development to CSNE – myself included.

Back following the pandemic with a performance of Frozen Jr, I knew before I’d even attended that we were going to be in for a treat after following their social media postings with progress of the construction of the puppets, casting and rehearsal process.  Lovely warm welcome was received from Mark & Fiona Clegg, the backbone and infinitely hard working co-owners of CSNE.  Lovely to see you both again.

The Kingdom of Arendelle was beautifully presented on stage with the use throughout of incredible animated backdrops, sequenced perfectly throughout and visually spectacular sung to tracks.  Costumes were absolutely superb and seemed to be constantly changing.  I’m told there were over 300 in total.

The performances generally by the entire cast were very well polished and executed, as Id expect to see from Fiona!  The roles of the most recognisable characters were dual cast and I was lucky enough to see Lilly Dixon, Molly Frost and Lily McGee as Anna, and Amelie Corner, Brooke Wilkinson and Darcy Ranasinghe as Elsa all of whom were excellent.  Really strong performances from all of them. Lilly and Amelie for their age were superb, really promising young stars.  Although Molly and Brooke were not on stage as long, they were beautiful and really made their mark as stars of the future.  Lily and Darcy were utter showstoppers, both incredible for their age.  Darcy’s delivery of the probably most recognised “Let It Go” with the iconic dress reveal was absolutely mesmerising and magical.  Beautifully done, timed with the backdrops and Darcy’s stage presence was superb.

The musical numbers were consistently strong, well-rehearsed and delivered with a wonderful enthusiasm from the cast.  Choreography was well rehearsed and executed well by the cast.  I did especially enjoy “For the First Time in Forever”  “Let it Go” “Hygge” and “Fixer Upper”.

The puppets made by the incredible Mark Clegg was amazing!  Full size, professional standard puppets of Sven and Olaf operated by Alma Finnegan and Alison Foster were marvellous! Really entertaining and visually superb. Alison as Olaf was especially animated, and had the children sat around me transfixed!  Such a good character actor.  I also especially enjoyed Oaken, played by Lexie Murray whose character acting and energy was incredible.  “Hygge” was an absolute joy and had the audience in stitches, such a fun high energy number which I was over the moon to hear repeated in the finale.

Special mention for stand out performances for me personally was Lily McGee as Anna, Darcy Ranasinge as Else, Alison Foster as Olaf, Lexie Murray as Oaken, Callum Robertson as the Duke of Weselton, Aydan Gargett as Kristoff and Jason McRoy as Hans.  I very much look forward to seeing more of you all.

Technical delivery especially with the lighting was excellent and really well thought out to make the best of the stage.  Overall a very well polished youth production with some absolute stars of the future being nourished by CSNE. Production credits were huge with a lovely strong dedicated team all giving their all to the stars of tomorrow.  Long may that continue, I can’t wait to see more of you all.

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