Jack and The Beanstalk

What better way to enter into the spirit of the Christmas season than with a trip to the annual local pantomime. As a youngster it was tradition that my local villager presented one of these historic shows at the village hall.  Giving the community an opportunity to tread the boards and entertain their friends and family with one of the many fairy stories that we have come to associate with Panto, I was therefore taken back to my childhood with a visit to Stone Revellers “Jack and the Beanstalk”. 

Having visited many of the Reveller’s productions over the last few years from Musicals to Plays, I had never seen one of their Pantomimes.  When attending a production of this genre one has to abandon all snobbery of taste and preference and look at the intention behind such shows and enter into the spirit of ‘Panto Land’.

With a simple set, offering a basic suggestion of time and place we were greeted with the staple diet of a company opening number featuring almost the full cast and supporting ensemble. In turn we were gradually introduced to individual characters and as the plot unfolded were given the reason to their involvement in this well-known story. As is so common with the panto tradition, reference is regularly given to current day items, topics and trends. This performance was certainly no different, with a Pokemon collecting Simple Simon! 

With jokes a plenty and enough good fun to keep us chuckling into the New Year, the Revellers embraced the fun element of performing this show. At times there was evidence of things going slightly off script and not as planned (collapsing market stall during a scene change and some corpsing!) which I am sure, given it was opening night would have been ironed out. But of course, being funny is not an easy task! Credit must therefore be given to Matthew Wright for his portrayal of Simon. The dry and innocent delivery of joke after joke made for entertaining viewing and for me was the show stealer. Whilst the team of principals were working hard, I did feel that Picallili could have been more gruesome in character to compliment the well portrayed sugar sweet Fairy Startdust.

With an eclectic mix of songs to compliment the script, the performers made a valiant attempt at company and solo singing.  Just remember that diction and intonation are key to a good song and sometimes the voices were difficult to hear over the band. In such as small venue, with some good projection and less amplification of the musicians, I am sure this would improve.

However, that all said, I went along for a night of frivolous entertainment, and that is exactly what I got! All credit to the Revellers for their continued enthusiasm for delivering stage productions, and for giving members of the local community an opportunity to perform.

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