Jack and The Beanstalk

An interesting start to this show as we had two young fairies, Liberty Brown and Eva Lewis, walking amongst the audience with bubble guns/dispensers spraying bubbles, as they returned to the stage we could see that they had ‘L’ plates on their backs, we were then quickly introduced to prettily costumed Fairy Moonbeam seated on a well illuminated segment of the moon. In contrast we also had the first appearance of the baddie Fleshcreep with dark makeup, dressed in green, gold and leopard skin finished costume whom we rapidly learnt to Boo.

We didn’t see a lot of Fairy Moonbeam played by Lucy Hunt as she didn’t have a large role in the Panto, but she did look every inch a fairy princess. Lee Gibbons as Fleshcreep however, as the Giant’s henchman, had a large role throughout the show and relished every chance to be booed and hissed at although he didn’t make my flesh creep, maybe he did for the many children in the audience. The Trott family who are the core of the show consisted of Lee Knights as Dame Dottie Trott who trotted around in some outrageous costumes and wigs, I did feel that his makeup could have been more flamboyant. He shared the comedy highlights with Ryan Standing as his son Silly Billy Trott, these two made a good pairing and worked well together although the Dairy scene was a bit predictable and the dropping of eggs, chicken and milk down the tubes slowed the scene a bit, at least to my mind. Ryan enjoys the banter with the audience and the audience enjoy him as he works well with them, good repartee and adlibbing and full of energy. The final member of the Trott family was Kyle Davy as Jack Trott, his first Panto with Dereham, he played his role well and appeared a good match for Miami Standing who played the kidnapped heroine Jill, her stage experience was clear to see.

We had good performances from Chris Robinson as King Maurice and Cherie Wild as Grabbit whose high-pitched voice was occasionally a little difficult to understand. Another pairing that worked well together, was that of Gary Davison and Zak Barham as Daisy the Cow, who trotted around the stage with excellent timing and movement. It was nice to see them out of costume for the curtain call. Another character out of costume for the curtain call was Teejay Standing as the Giant, this was a giant character that he deftly moved around stage inside of, the voice for which was provided by Stephen Rimmer, booming nicely giant like. There were cameos for Evie Powell as the Harp, a well-played ghost by Harrison Chase-Adams, Wren Knights’ Hen laying a golden egg also a cat in the Giants Kitchen well played by Orson Knights, chasing around the stage and curled up in the cat’s basket, very realistic and true to life.

There was a small team of good dancers, well-schooled and nicely costumed, they also worked well writhing around as roots at the bottom of the bean stalk in body stocking costumes. In fact, all the small ensemble were well costumed as villagers and gave good performances in their scenes with both movement and singing. The songs throughout were well sung although just once or twice solo songs were momentarily drowned out by the music. There was a good lighting plot, generally good sound, with unfortunately a couple of glitches, but it was the first performance! This was a show that was much enjoyed by the audience and I’ve never seen so many youngsters eager to get on stage for the community sing-a-long. There was an abundance of good costumes for the whole cast, some good set pieces and design, although one backcloth had trouble being pulled across. There were a good village shop and Dottie’s cottage in the opening scene, a large chair for the giant, and set/props for the Giant’s kitchen (although it appeared to collapse at the end of the scene) a great hot air balloon basket and a great Bean plant. 

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