Hook - The Panto Strikes Back

A huge thank you to all of your company for the warm welcome on a cold and frosty December evening at Warnham Village Hall. It was lovely to meet some of you beforehand, and with an excellent wide array of refreshments available too. As an aside, there’s a lot to be said for a village hall as a performance space – yes, you might miss out on the raked seating or the complex lighting and sound systems, but what you lose in technical availability you gain in intimacy with your audience and a much more involved and immersive evening – which is exactly what you need for panto, but you took this to the next level!

Usually, a NODA report doesn’t touch upon a show’s script, as it’s a relative rarity that it has been written by the company – but since it’s Christmas, I just want to say that it was a brilliant script by Dennis Manning & Darren Worsford which hit ALL the right panto notes, from the multi-layered jokes that had the kids and adults laughing at the same punchline (but for wildly different reasons!) to the pun-riddled script and set-pieces which all were woven into the story without it feeling like things were overly crowbarred in or going too far in terms of the more adult jokes – spot on!

Similarly, your Director, Patrick Casey must have had a hard job on his hands keeping some semblance of control over your talented and downright hilarious cast – there was so much fun and spontaneity and energy – but he had clearly allowed enough free space for you to develop your characters and fully create personalities with just the right amount of grotesque to give a balanced full-cast performance – there were no weak links, and everyone fully embodied their characters. What was nice was that when there were funny ad-libbed asides or extra lines, these were clearly audible to the audience, which really “invites us in”, rather than them being mumbled to stage companions which puts the audience off as they feel excluded from the joke. That was really nicely done by everyone!

You were a brilliant cast throughout, but special mention for panto hilarity should go to Jonathan Hope as “Captain Hook” for giving us the epitome of a panto “baddie” with the right amount of swagger, vanity and pomposity, which provided an excellent foil for both the hilarious Julian Tiley as “Dolly Deep-Sea” whose facial expressions and voice had me in stitches whenever “she” came on, and also the frankly perfect “Deck” and “Scrub”, played by your writers Dennis Manning & Darren Worsford, who are the best panto double-act I have seen for a long, long time on both the amateur and professional stage. Helen Casey’s “Tink” was a delightful change from the usual panto fairy – giving us a more disgruntled and disenfranchised offering, which was just lovely - “I’m just an angry glow-stick” might be my favourite line in terms of delivery of any show this year!. More excellent opposing characters were nicely delivered by the vain and self absorbed Jason Garbutt as “Sinbad” and the wonderfully energetic and neurotic “Peter Pan” played by Lauren Smith. Laine Watson’s “Ariel” was ably performed with some splendid lines, and the “poor” singing was a delightful touch (although “Shut up Ariel” is now my go-to whenever anyone mentions or sings an out-of-place song).

Excellent support was given by the rest of the crew, with great comic timing from Daryl Holmwood as “Clyde” and Roger Kidd as “Lofty” – and some very focused guitar playing by the latter whilst chaos ensued around him during the “12 Days of Christmas” – credit to him, too, for penning the delightfully witty “Another Manor Panto”. Andrew Bates as King Triton channelling his best Kenneth Williams and also masquerading as a bell ringing monk was another highlight, and I really enjoyed Anna Bird’s versatility as the exasperated vicar and pirate crew!

It was nice to see you involving your younger members, too, as the Lost Boys. Ben Bird, Luke Holmwood and Amelia Smith kept the action going with their gags – and I can’t possibly forget the show-stealing Ben Worsford as “Croc” pulling it all together at the end! A star in the making, there, with lovely confidence in his delivery.

What was abundantly clear to the audience – and this is one of the most important things that a cast can do - was that you were ALL thoroughly enjoying yourselves throughout the show, from the brilliantly handled diversions to the script, ad-libbed asides or the prop malfunctions to the classic “messy” scene – and as another side note, bravo for staging the latter – so many groups shy away from putting a “messy” scene in, in order to protect their costumes or avoid having to clear up the stage mid-show… but when you take suitable precautions you can go wild, as you did! Well, if you are going to do it, you may as well do it properly – and you did, with great conviction and hilarious results.

I have to mention, too, that the “If I Were not upon the Stage” set-piece was one of the funniest, best-structured and best-delivered examples of this song that I think I have ever seen – it was like a combination of the best bits of Holiday Camp entertainment, The Generation Game, Crackerjack, It’s a Knock Out and all the slapstick greats… just brilliant, it was a hoot.

The costumes were well-chosen, with nice consistency uniting various groups like the “Lost Boys” and the pirate crew. The ‘iconic’ looks of characters like “Peter Pan” and “Captain Hook” made them instantly recognisable, ditto “Ariel” with her red wig – though I also loved the more “alternative” interpretations; “Tink” was a long way from her more typical “Disney” presentation, and it suited her feisty personality perfectly.

Lighting and sound were pitched exactly correctly and supported the action rather than dominating or overshadowing it – I do always say that the best thing that you can say about light and sound effects is that you don’t notice them; they are there of course, and there clearly was thought and careful design that had gone into them – but they never distracted from or swamped what was happening on stage, instead completing the picture nicely.

It's said that "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard" and it was clear that you had ALL put in so much work with your delivery, performances and production as a whole. So often groups think that panto is easy, and those who go into a production thinking that way always fall flat – you need everyone to be “on” 100% of the time, and you certainly achieved that with your production: it felt like you had “turned it up to 11” energy-wise all the way through.

Thank you again for inviting me to see such an enjoyable panto, you’ve really raised the bar this year!

Have a lovely Christmas, and see you all next year…

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