GOLDILOCKS AND THE 3 BEARS

Sutton Green Hut Theatre Companys “Goldilocks and the 3 bears” was my first panto of the year, and it made such a great start to this festive season.

I think we’re all familiar with the traditional fairytale of the young girl, Goldilocks,  who gets lost in the woods, then finds a house, eats porridge, sits in chairs and then sleeps in beds.  This well written amusing panto brought an extra “twist” to the tale - involving of course a dashing hero, a fairy, a demon queen, an evil uncle, a love-sick pedlar, a kind-hearted benefits inspector and an old lady who lives in a shoe!

Emma Howard as Goldilocks was perfect for this role.  She has such clarity in diction and a beautiful singing voice.  Roxanne Williams as Billy – the dashing hero was great as principal boy and delivered her musical numbers with expertise. 

Philip Smith as Dame Betty Buttercup did a brilliant job of bringing the humour to the stage.  Along with a cleverly written script and his brilliant comedy timing he certainly delivered everything a pantomime dame should, and with brilliant costumes, wigs and make up he was perfect in the part.

Anne Mody as the pedlar gave a very confident performance and worked so well with Dame Buttercup in the comedy routine when looking for the bears in the woods. 

Olivia Humphrey as the demon queen (or was she really?!) and Louise Ware as the good fairy added that extra wit and sparkle to the production and both had some very funny lines.  I loved that the demon was sort of evil…but then again not, and the audience loved the banter!

Josh Breeze as the loveable benefits inspector Montgomery Tibthwich – complete with a lisp – must have worked so hard on that script!  He never let the “lisp” drop and was hilarious in the musical numbers with his loveable “dance partner”.

David Knights, Anna Stead and Hanna were the loveable Papa, Mama and Baby bear and they had “just the right” amount of cuteness to deliver throughout the story.

Bryan Blackie was the evil uncle and his experience shone through in his musical number “You’ll Be Back”.

I loved all the musical numbers – a really great choice to help with the storytelling, and they were all performed to backing tracks, which made everyone sing out loud and clear.  The whole cast gave 110% in everything that they did – singing, dancing and storytelling.

The set and backcloths were simple and effective, with great use of props.  Costumes, make up and wigs were striking and colourful.

Congratulations to Philip Smith as director, Emma-Jayne Waters as choreographer and David Knights as vocal coach.  You did Sutton proud!

 

 

 

 

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