Jack and the Beanstalk

This was Jack and the Beanstalk with a difference, in that practically everybody ended up climbing the beanstalk! The number of children in the cast far outnumbered the adults, which was an interesting concept. There was a very affectionate cow called Whoopsie Daisy, who kept licking everyone and everything with her very long tongue. Everyone wanted to go to the concert by King (tickets £80 each, cheap by today’s standards, I suppose!), and we did indeed meet Freddie Venus and Brian June (get it?), and enjoyed a good deal of their music, with Brian playing his guitar. There was of course a baddie, Ted Brown, a horrid landlord with an ulterior motive, who wanted to coerce Jack’s mum Sue into marrying him by extorting ever more rent until she had to give in and accept his proposal.

Lighting and sound were very effective throughout. There were some good sound effects. The music was well adjusted, so that it never drowned out the voices, always a great thing in my view, particularly when lyrics have been adapted for the panto story, and children are involved, whose voices are not generally as strong.

As usual, Compton’s scenery was very attractive, especially Sue Trott’s kitchen, with shelves laden with pots, pans, bowls, potted plants, and cupboards. The castle scenery was very impressive too with its massive walls of dark brown stone, very intimidating.  The beanstalk was on loan from Fisher’s Farm Park in Sussex. When Jack, and later the others, first arrived at the top, they found themselves among the clouds, and looking onto the huge threatening-looking magic harp and the huge giant behind a white gauze curtain, all done by a clever trick of the lighting and magnification, I guess. The gold coins in the treasure chest looked huge too, a great disappointment when Dotty and Co discovered them to be actually normal sized. We didn’t mind though, as they then got distributed among the audience!

Costumes were very attractive, the village people in suitable peasant wear or pretty dresses. Jack was in green with yellow tights and a cap, his sister Dotty in a very charming blue dress. Their mother, Sue Trott, of course was clad in outrageous gowns and wig, and at one stage a short nightie, shocking pink tights, a voluminous flowery housecoat over the top. The old beggar man wore ragged garb with face-covering hood and gigantic long beard. Freddie wore white trousers and red and white ‘college’ jacket. Brian June, of course, was in a very convincing long black wig. The cow had a delightful, smiley face. The yellow beak toad costume was great, with indeed a yellow pointy beak! Well done to the costume department!

Once again, this production was very long. I still feel that, for a panto, maximum 1 hour each half is plenty. Nevertheless, this panto had some good ideas. Firstly, the rock concert by ‘King’. This gave us the chance to enjoy various Queen numbers, belted out rather well by Sean Brown, as Freddie, and Gordon Ayshford on the guitar as Brian June. There were clever posters on the village hall walls too. There was a smartly dressed lady in a red uniform and hat selling the concert tickets, and collecting them as concertgoers entered on the day. We learned that their names were: Beelzebub, Fandango, Scaramouche and Galileo, that was a bit of fun.

The cow, of course, played a larger role than often is the case. She was very loveable, and showed her affection for all by licking everyone, and she was a clever cow too, being able to shake hands and count to ten. There was a nice rendition of ‘Daisy, Daisy’ as the cow went to market, with two white parasols acting as wheels (of the bicycle made for two, I guess), at the end of the number.

The Wizard of Oz came into the proceedings at one stage, and we had a jolly version of ‘Follow the Yellow Beak Toad’ as the company left the hall by the rear entrance following this clever hoppy creature (Juliet Meneely).

Jack’s family was a nice little unit, with Mum Sue (Hugo Wilson) and sister Dotty. Jack was played exceedingly well by Hannah Taylor, and Charlotte Treacy made a fine Dotty – both parts very well cast, and those young ladies always a joy to watch. Congratulations to them.

Sophie Leach played Jill very sweetly, the girl who was keen on Jack, bought him the concert ticket he couldn’t afford, and became his girlfriend indeed. The pair of them were super as they sang, to the tune of ‘There’s a hole in my bucket’, the jolly number about their defective lamp: ‘The wick isn’t burning, dear Jill, dear Jill’. They did, as it turned out, also have a hole in their bucket!

There was some good choreography on stage and in the hall, for example to ‘Another one bites the dust’ and ‘We will rock you’, where the audience of course joined in loudly with the singing – this just couldn’t be avoided, of course, and was a great highlight – who doesn’t love a good Queen song!

The giant turned out not to be a giant at all, just Sean Brown playing Sue’s husband who had left her many years ago to, as she had told the children, ‘gone to live in the sky’, so all turned out alright in the end.

The adults in the cast all played their roles well, but the young people (I shan’t call them children, they were all teenagers, I guess) were fabulous. Well done to them! They provided another fun evening in Compton to chase away the January blues.

 

 

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