Jack and The Beanstalk

The thing I love about Barton Players is they are an extremely welcoming but close knit, resilient group to whom pandemics and ever-changing government regulations are mere obstacles to be dealt with and moved on from, very much in the old fashioned, ‘The show must go on’ mould. Nothing phases this group, and whilst others are still trying to pick themselves up after a devastating couple of years for all theatre groups, Barton Players have somehow managed to put on a live pantomime in both of the last two years. The only society in my district to do so. Therefore, before the show started for this achievement alone I was honoured to be able to present them with NODA’s prestigious ‘Covid Warriors’ award for those societies who went over and above in order to keep us all entertained in these dark times.

I also hate having to attend first nights, where the show is still settling down and, especially for pantomimes, whose Thursday night audience is unlikely to include the necessary and balanced main ingredient, children! But sadly, unavoidably on this occasion. And so it was at Barton-le-Clay village hall, where the show opened to a sparce, mainly adult audience. But of course, this didn’t deter Barton Players whose enthusiasm and professional dedication immediately showed through.

The set, designed by the multi-talented Keith Bowie and painted by Milly and Chloe Badham was a series of brightly painted flats with a central flat cleverly providing entrances stage left and right, which depicted Dame Trott’s Farm as the background in the first half and Cloud Land, where the giant lived in the second half. And of course it had the obligatory Beanstalk which ‘grew’ out of the flowerbed in front of the central flat. Very clever!

The sound and lighting in the hands of Keith (Sound) and Adam (Lighting) Bowie was extremely effective. The sound of the giant approaching was particularly memorable and had the walls themselves shaking. 

Costumes by Hayley Bloodworth with make up by Debbie Radcliff certainly turned heads with the spectacular Dame’s appropriately over the top appearance. Nice one ladies. An interesting and very amusing idea to only have a giant claw, which only appeared poking out from the wings to represent the giant was a really good piece of thinking by the props department of Debbie Radcliffe and Keith Bowie. Neat!! 

Sadly, this year the show was restricted to a no children’s chorus, so all the chorus numbers, choreograph by Jade Franks and Hayley Bloodworth were performed by the main characters themselves doubling up, which actually worked rather well. Hard work for the cast however, whose quick changes must have been somewhat manic at times. Talking of which, one of the comic highlights was the costume change for the cow, which was played by two of the main characters, Simple Simon and Princess Violet, who actually appeared in the same scene as their main characters and the cow, constantly rushing off to change character and leading to a wonderful moment of a half-dressed cow with the principals’ clothes hanging out of the cow’s costume. Intentional or accidental it had the audience rolling in the aisles. I hope it stayed for the rest of the run..?

The script by the amazing versatile Keith Badham was a mixture of the traditional and the extremely quirky. But then what else would you expect from this playwright than to have Humpty Dumpty and a dancing Nympth, both played by the man himself in the middle of a pantomime for no particular plot reason. Love it! The mechanism with which Humpty was dumpted off the wall, twice, was very cleverly thought out and the scene itself was definitely one of the highlights.

Rebecca-Louise Smith as our principal boy, Jack Trott was a very strong lead and whose dialogue and empathy with Simple Simon (Hayley Bloodworth) was the cornerstone of the play. The two of them complimented each other extremely well. Nice job ladies.

Needless to say John Murphy certain made the most of the role of Dame Trott and was obviously having a ball. Would love to have seen him on the Saturday matinee with the children instead of the poor-quality audience (yours truly) he was forced to bring up on stage in the audience participation scene. He certainly knows how to hit a note or two amply demonstrated with his rendition of Hit the Road Jack (with Rebecca-Louise Smith) and Man, I Feel Like a Woman

Jade Franks, Princess Violet certainly provided an appropriate love interest, albeit not quite as tradition would have it, ending up with Simple Simon and not Jack. But what else would you expect from a Keith Badham script!

Our good fairy Dewdrop, Linda Foster had a wonderful dismissive and exasperated way of putting down our villain Slimeball, played by Mick George who was the master of the cloaked villain, displaying his fabulous smile to villainous effect, also amply demonstrated as the Mysterious Stranger.

The King and Queen, Harold Liberty and Gill George have voices to die for, amply demonstrated in their duet of Anything you can do.  Fabulous to listen to.

Derryanne Blunt, brought yet another comic Badham moment to life as the Giantess, persuading us all of her tall height (not). Brilliant incredulity!

Chris Radcliffe as the ‘Chelsea Pensioner’ dressed Guard must be the fittest man in cast, spending most of his time running round the hall carrying a large axe, always in the wrong direction, but to great comic effect. Also with Chris and Harold both dressed in the same uniform I though I was seeing double for a few seconds

And even the director herself, Rachael Bowie, donned a costume or two as the Golden Goose and a villager.

One thing that slightly puzzled. I not sure if every actor was miked throughout, but sometimes those acting as chorus during songs such as ‘Do You Believe in Magic’ were hard to hear. Yet with songs like ‘Reach’ and ‘’Merry Christmas Everyone’ they seemed more confident and thus it was much clearer. Not sure if this was a technical issue or a confidence one..?  

That minor criticism aside, this a thoroughly enjoyable evening enjoyed by all, exactly what village hall pantomime should look like. Well done indeed to Director and Producer Rachael Bowie, you guys are a real inspiration to amateur theatre everywhere.

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