Grand Wymsical and Highlights from Calamity Jane

The programme for this concert was divided into two main themes; the first part consisted of 14 numbers chosen predominantly by the youngsters themselves, followed by a selection of highlights from the thwarted Wymsical performance of “Calamity Jane” scheduled for 2020. Credit due for even staging this concert at all, which was delayed by just over a week and still had a much-reduced cast, due to the pandemic.

Ellie Morris led the opening number of ‘Unafraid’ from “Flora the Red Menace”, the first collaboration by Kander and Ebb, with strength and clarity and good company support. This was followed by the tuneful Sylvie Symons and Ivor Novello’s ‘Love is my Reason’ and Will McCrea’s strong and comic interpretation of Gilbert & Sullivan’s ‘Pirate King’.  

Georgie Levine and Lexi Ford gave a sweet rendition of ’Fully Dressed’ from “Annie” and Clara Davies and Ruby Davies gave an understandably passionate performance of ‘Prejudice’ by Tim Minchin, explaining that “Only a ginger can call another ginger, ginger”! It was obvious that Izzy Davies and the company enjoyed ’The Locomotion’ with some lovely harmonies and Kaitlyn Norwood tackled the demanding ‘Satisfied’ from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “Hamilton” so well.

Morgan Wolseley-Charles and Sylvie Symons also did well with the not often sung ‘The Desert Song’ by Romberg & Hammerstein and there was no loss of conviction by the Company singing ‘Revolting Children’ from Minchin’s “Matilda”. Sam Nield gave a mature performance of ‘If I Sing’ by Maltby and Shire and Megan Jones was joined by the girls for a moving ‘Jealous of the Angels’ inspired by singer song writer Jenn Bostic following the death of her father.

Sam, Morgan, Clara and Emily came together for ‘Poor Child’ by Andrew Lippa; a difficult quartet well performed. The end of Part 1 was performed by the girls with ‘No One is alone’ from “Into the Woods” by Sondheim followed by the company singing ‘You’ll never walk alone’ from “Carousel”, both included some lovely harmony work.

After the interval we enjoyed a selection of numbers from “Calamity Jane” when the opportunity was given for doubling up some of the characters. They all demonstrated how unfortunate we were not to see the full version. Highlights included ‘Everyone complains about the weather’, ‘Hive full of Honey’, ‘Keep it under your hat’, ‘Secret Love’ and of course ‘Black Hills of Dakota’ left us wanting more.

All were beautifully dressed and Britt Needham provided some slick moves. The on-stage three-piece band led by Stephen Watkins (piano, drums and flute / saxophone) played sensitively throughout. Director Richard Taylor pulled together a very entertaining evening when once again we were treated to an interesting and inspiring choice of musical numbers. 

Bruce Wyatt

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