Honk!

This is a delightful story, based on the Hans Christian Andersen story of The Ugly Duckling.  Blackmore Players have produced a nice evenings entertainment with many of the cast playing 2 or even 3 different parts!

They all did very well, with plenty of variation between each of the characters they played.  The three Principals were all good.  Thomas Hughes played Ugly and he had the character perfectly. He had developed some very’ duckling-like’ mannerisms which made his performance quite memorable.  It has been nice to see him develop over the years he has been performing with the Players and he did very well in his first lead role.

Matthew Pearson played the cat, quite different from how I’ve seen the character played in the past and I really liked this interpretation.  He had a lot of energy on stage and this brought the menace of the character to life.

Lisa Rawlings played Ida, the mother duck beautifully.  She held my attention when she was on stage and we felt for her anguish at not being able to find her ‘other’ son.

The rest of the cast worked extremely hard at all their characters and there were some lovely individual performances, notably from Bill Edwards as a truly memorable Bullfrog.  Hilary Martin (Maureen) and Rosemarie Nelson (Grace) both produced nice characters.  And a special mention for the three ducklings, Alana (Downy) Chloe (Billie) and Lucia (Beaky).  Together they were a lovely team.

The set was simple but affective, however, although the Kit Kat Snack Shack looked great, I feel that the time it took to set it up and strike it was actually not worth the final effect.  The rather long blackout and the noises off with the movement and set up slowed the pace of the show a little too much.   Not to mention that it took up so much space on the stage that Matthew was very restricted in performing Play With Your Food.  Such a shame as he was very energetic and could have done with more space to move about in.

The costumes were good, quite creative in giving the impression of the character without actually making them look like the animal, I liked that.

Overall the cast performed well, and the audience seemed to enjoy the show.

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