Ghost The Musical

This review is a supplement to the one written by my colleague, NODA Councillor Tessa Davies who saw the same cast perform two days earlier.

Having watched the majority of this cast progress through the school it is a real treat to see what was effectively the culmination of a decade of learning their craft as they prepare to move on into the world and whatever awaits them in the outside thespian landscape.

The standard of production from the embryonic days of just Mr Luke Skeel as their teacher with makeshift performances in the main school hall, to the purpose build drama studio, with an expanded dedicated performing arts staff they have now has raised this school and its pupils to a level that enables them to perform with the very best. Put simply, an example of how to create something superb from embryonic beginnings.

Ghost, which I admit I hadn’t seen before, is by no means an easy musical to perform, either on the drama or the musical side. As the programme points out, its longer for a school’s edition than normal at just over two hours, two hours twenty with interval (How on Earth long is the full version one has to ask?!) and it involves putting over some very grown-up emotions. Not easy to do with dialogue, let alone in song. 4SIXTEEN needed all its experience to pull it off and in the main it did so superbly.   

It was the attention to detail regarding listening and reacting to each other and use of emotional pauses that didn’t slow the pace that was particularly impressive and put across the drama of the story extremely well.

Noah Wosahlo playing Sam Wheat is obviously a gifted musician handled the ‘male’ emotional approach to relationships, i.e shying away from ‘love,’ in his actions but not in his emotions rather well, amply demonstrated with his rendition of Three Little Words and Unchained Melody.

Daisy Loft in her last appearance for 4SIXTEEN playing Molly Jensen, really did know how to put across this emotional roller coaster of a character whose journey from deeply in love, to the pits of despair at the loss of her beloved Sam, to the final parting was very mature, particularly the way she handled emotion in her singing voice. I note she is very much intending to pursue performing arts as a career and I wish her all the best at Lamda!  She showed us what being a fine example of 4SIXTEEN’s is all about.

Ava Kelly as Oda Mae Brown is a class act when it comes to comedy and gets my vote as the standout performance. The way she portrayed this very upbeat but charlatan character, who suddenly discovers she does have ‘the gift’ after all was absolutely superb, showing great communication with the audience. It was almost as if she was delivering lines as asides to the audience. Very cleverly and comedically done!

Harrison Clifford-Simmons played the double-crossing Carl Bruner did the subtly of deception and dishonesty very well. Nice job, great baddy!

The supporting cast were first and foremost very well drilled indeed by Sophie Kelk and Daniella Reynolds, exits and entrances timed and executed to perfection. They also acted as stage hands bringing on the cube boxes and door frames on wheels, all positioned to the square inch But as my colleague noted in her review they could have done with either a bigger stage, or a smaller cast, as the room to perform did come across as a somewhat restricted, but I guess that’s the price of inclusivity of all who want to perform. And who can blame them for that!

On the technical side, which was a complicated series of light and sound cues, not to forget the smoke effects that were handled particularly well (apart from letting off the fire alarm, thankfully well after the end of the show!), and that was done by Jack Serino, Emily Green  and Lyra Colliss (Year 7) on the sound side and by that now go to lighting man, Ben Cronin. Ben has produced some fine work during his time at the school and is obviously destined to go on to a promising backstage career with that level of knowledge and experience already behind him. Another perfect example of what 4SIXTEEN brings out in talented students. Good luck Ben, I wish you a long and successful career in theatreland.

So, all in all I would say this was an ambitious project which came to fruition thanks to a lot of dedication and hard work by all involved. And most importantly everybody seemed to be thoroughly enjoying it as well as learning from it at the same time. And that is what it is really all about! So well done to Director Luke Skeel and his cast and crew.

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