Jack and the Beanstalk

The cast of this show, with only three exceptions was made up of the younger members of the Society and they certainly did justice to the roles they played and gave the audience a most entertaining performance.

The opening was unusual in that it comprised purely of a dance, ably performed by the pupils of Miss Hannah’s School of Dance and this set the standard for the following action.

Jonathan Wardle gave an outrageous performance as Dotty Dimple, the traditional pantomime dame and was well supported by Jack and Simple Simon (Bobby Worthington and Michael Siddle) who both worked hard throughout to keep the action moving in the right direction.

The villainy of the panto was in the shape of Piccalilli, the Witch (Esther Taylor), and Rancid the Rat Man (Angie McKenna) whose mixture of self-promotion and evil was well thwarted by Fairy Sugar Dust, excellently portrayed by George Woodfine and whose every appearance caused roars of laughter from the appreciative audience. After all it is not often one sees an elderly gentleman dressed in this part!

The King (James Mitchell) and his Queen (Kate Nor-Mally) were very solid in their parts and brought a certain amount of decorum to the show with good acting and showing how royalty should behave (except in the usual moments of panic when their daughter, Princess Primrose (Abbey Bateman) was captured by the Giant.

Luke Crouch and Ted Hollas, the broker’s men, Snatchet and Scarper gave us a good show of the bullying and cowardice normally associated with these roles.

Harvey Green as Humphrey, the King’s man of all work and Major-Domo was completely eccentric, whilst the antics of Buttermilk the cow won the hearts of the audience.

The lighting and staging were very good as was the music, even though it was all taped and the costumes were well thought out and appropriate in all cases.

Sue Jackson and Alex Fenn, director and producer respectively should be proud of their work with these young people and strive to ensure this level of performance in future productions  

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