Jack and the Beanstalk

The missing sound effect to announce the fairy’s entrance didn’t spoil the visual apparition that was Emily Clarke as Fairy Moonbeam. Emily gave a solid performance as the saviour of the Trott’s fortunes and her solo song, with some of the chorus as backing, was beautiful.  Emily has lovely stage presence and gave a first-class performance.

Heather Marshall performed her usual baddie (not really) character as Snivelling and literally snivelled her way through the show with humour and menace in equal measure. She too sang her song well but was unfortunately slightly overpowered by the music. My only observation was that she could have raised her head a little to prevent the dialogue dipping.

Jill (Madeleine Thompson) and Sally (Olivia Davies) played the love interests and although Madeleine struggled with the range of her songs she coped well and certainly looked the part of the principal girl. The girls did well but standing with your arms folded is not a good look and sometimes gives a misrepresentation of the character.  However, this did not detract from Madeleine’s lovely and feisty performance.

Jack was the determined principal boy, and Samantha Naylor used her experience in this role to bring some depth to the part. I lost count of the number of thigh slaps she put in which added comedy to the characterisation. Sam nailed (absolutely no pun intended) her songs and her rendition of ‘Fight Song’ was fabulous and brought the chorus to life and was a highlight of the show. It was disappointing to see that many of the younger chorus didn’t sing for much of the time and even though the dances were similar throughout they didn’t look as lively as we know they can be. Perhaps not being confident with the dances impacted on the songs. It was nice to see the ladies of the chorus using their expertise to move the chorus into place and take them out of the dreaded straight line.

The squire played by Rob Magee was a small but intrinsic role and Rob carried it off nicely. His able assistants were Ready (Hazel-Freya Thomas) and Waiting (Caitlin Archer) who were the comedy duo acting as the Kings henchmen. Their duet was well delivered but unfortunately some of the dialogue was again lost.

Steve Raven’s voice could be heard as Giant Blunderbore and to the delight of the audience the actual Giant was carried off by Brian Archer. It was brilliant to see the giant even though some of the surrounding children weren’t too sure about him. The outcome was positive; however, it was unfortunate that the receptacles and table were not appropriately proportioned for his size.

Dame Trott was played by HAPS newcomer Shane Carlson made his presence known from his first entrance and made great efforts to get the audience on his side. It did work well but I felt Shane has more to give. Whilst the Dame should be larger than life, she was overshadowed by the incomparable Silly Billy played by Lydia Denton. Lydia was a ray of sunshine from the moment she stepped on stage. Her quick-witted reactions to comments from the audience were so effortless and she just had them eating out of her hand. Lydia and Shane worked well together but when it came to throwing out sweets, there were many, many disappointed children who didn’t get a look in as the sweets were only thrown to the first few rows or handed to the children in the front row by the Dame. But Lydia stole the show and was an absolute pleasure to watch. The scene with the cow was a little slow until Billy introduced the ‘Heimlich manoeuvre' which was translated in Billy’s head to Hind Lick. This was so funny and demonstrated Lydia’s comic timing perfectly. The cow (Molly Fraser and Isabella Glinos) could have been used much more but were good when they did appear on stage.

Tracy Crum, as the singing Hen, was fabulous. Her musicality and timing were spot on and an absolute joy. Her interjections during the castle scene were another highlight and we loved it.

It was a beautiful set and the new LED lighting at the Courtyard made the visual impact vibrant throughout, although some special effects would have enhanced the production and were certainly needed.

However, from the reaction of the children who were on the edge of their seats, they loved it and that is the best reaction to have for all the hard work that the cast put into this production.

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