Hansel and Gretel

There have been many adaptations of the story of Hansel and Gretel. The original Grimm’s fairy tale is of twins abandoned in the woods by their wicked stepmother and lured by a cannibalistic witch into her cottage made of sweets, deep in the forest.  In this adaptation by Sammy Mann the twins are living with their mother, Dame Allsorts the village Baker.    Whilst out looking for the Lollipop Flower to pick for their mother’s birthday they are captured by Witch Aniseed’s assistant and taken to her house made of gingerbread.  This is of course pantomime and so the fantasy element far outweighs any dubious issues and a happy ending is assured.

The opening/welcoming scene of a chorus of young people was nice and there were some good voices which helped to carry those who appeared less confident.

Narrator David Phillips introduced us to the story in verse. This worked reasonably well but his delivery lacked the intonation necessary to capture the attention of the audience, especially the children. Unfortunately the light used to illuminate his script was extremely bright and shining in the direction of the audience as it did, made looking at him rather difficult. 

Fran Mayes was delightful as Butterscotch the cat and was obviously enjoying playing the part.  She may not have had words to learn, but her acting was well timed and all meows were delivered with a smile. Sheila Bronson displayed her stagecraft and competence as Witch Aniseed, making the character menacing without being too scary. Her assistant Treacle was charmingly played by Freya Lambert. Such a pity she had a solo which was really beyond the capabilities of her young voice.

There were lovely performances from Jake Smith and Georgina Lowe as Hansel and Gretel. They immediately connected with the audience and displayed good confident acting and singing. Very well done.  The chair shuffle and “Hello Treacle” line – brilliant!

A good confident performance from Chris Watkins as Prince Charming.  Excellent projection and a good singing voice. His henchmen, Harry (Lilo Phillips) and Bo (Henry Turner) both gave good competent support.

There were other good performances from Jeff Bronson as Paul, the rather simple Park Ranger and from Verity Lowe who wowed us in those gorgeous pink boots, as Red Jelly Baby. A confident young actress with a lovely voice.

The linchpin of any pantomime is the Dame.  This character should be larger than life and ideally played by an actor who possesses a natural ability to really connect with the audience, especially the children.  Steve Woolmer as Dame Allsorts was obviously having a good go at it but his performance seemed to fall somewhat short of the mark and the heavy green eye make-up, although comical, did make it difficult to see his facial expressions at times. Off-key falsetto singing can be really funny when used for one or two bars but it was a little overdone here.

Well done to everyone else in the cast including the young people from the youth group, Junipers.

The costumes for the most part were good but Dame Allsorts’ outfits were rather tame and lacked the over-the-top absurdity associated with a pantomime dame. I would love to have seen her in an outrageous outfit for the finale.

The set was well devised and good use made of the tab to depict the forest scenes. Scene changes were slick and there was good live musical accompaniment from Theresa Lowe and Jonathan Lowe.

Unfortunately the pace at times was rather slow. There were some very talented people on stage who all worked so hard to make the show a success and some of them probably had more to give. The introduction of lots more up-beat music and some movement and dance with less drawn out dialogue could have taken the show to a different level.

I hope you had an appreciative evening audience and that the run was a success for the Society.

Thank you for the warm welcome and I look forward to seeing everyone again next time.

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