Goodnight Mister Tom

From the very moving novel by Michelle Magorian, this play by David Wood captures the emotions and moving nature of this story and in turn Swansea Little Theatre created a fantastic piece of theatre which had the audience laughing and crying and experiencing all of the emotions you can think of.

This play was very well cast and involved the entire company. There was a very effective set and the costumes were well sourced and created. There were some fabulous lighting moments and this all served to produce a spellbinding story.

David Taylor played the role of Tom Oakley perfectly. There was a real journey that he took the audience on and he really captured the character of ‘Mister Tom’ beautifully. It was endearing to see that he played alongside his much younger co-star with great panache and this is of course also due to the fantastic performance by Hywel Allen as William. Again this young man gave such a wonderfully heart-warming portrayal to his character and both old man and young man had a lovely relationship on stage with each other and with the rest of the cast.

Other performances that I must mention are those of Tim Pottinger who was the pupetteer of Sammy the collie. At no point was the audience reminded that it was a man pulling the strings of Sammy, an essential in the story, as Tim had obviously worked hard to create that perfect timing and characterisation which made the audience believe this was a real dog. There were lovely performances by Stewart Jones, Ian McCloy, Rick Pearl, Helen Baurand Miles Rachel Dineen-Mabe and Lesley Thickins with Megan Thickins giving a very powerful performance as Mrs Beech. I must give special mention to Ivor Lewis as Zach as he lit up the stage every time he was on. He brought his obvious talent and stage presence to the role and this shone through.

Many thanks to the company for an evening of entertainment that will not soon be forgotten. Congratulations!

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