Jack & The Beanstalk

Sale Nomads present the ever traditional pantomime tale of Jack & The Beanstalk!

The art of pantomime is defiantly an area of expertise for this group, each member of the large cast - and indeed the folk backstage - clearly had a ball with this production. Everyone shone with the excitement of being involved which is such a key ingredient when taking part in a panto and ultimately resulted in a well presented and enjoyable production.

Pulling out all the stops was the superb collection of sets which wouldn’t look out of place at the Opera House Panto! I thought the scenery was hired in until I was told in the interval that Bryan Shakeshaft (on the committee) takes charge of all the set construction and artwork, which he gets knuckled down with in May each year! An immense achievement with spectacular results – congratulations and well done Bryan, each set looked super!!

Playing the Dame, Mother Hubbard, was the very capable Derek Stuart-Cole who gave us a traditional Dame delivering the part exactly as it should be, he was zany, energised and adored by all - I particularly enjoyed the cat / sausages scene and kudos for adding news stories into the script which were the main topic of that day, something I always look out for in pantomimes!

The song choices were a great selection and, as it should be, each song was recognisable which had the audience singing along, adding to a great pantomime atmosphere! (Such as ‘Physical’ – Olivia Newton John, ‘2 become 1’ – Spice Girls, ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ – One Direction, all gaining popular reactions from the audience).

With panto’s, you can use pretty much any songs you like to convey that particular characters emotion or heighten the ambiance of that particular scene so it does confuse me when songs are chosen for the principals which are far out of their reach – yes, the songs chosen, in theory, all fitted to create the right mood of that moment but some of these choices probably should have been readdressed when the players couldn’t physically sing them – this single factor did, unfortunately, hinder the quality of the production.

The children were adorable! Not only do they dance well, each of them danced with character which is so rare to see from such young performers! Susan Harris, responsible for the children’s choreography did a great job, Susan obviously spent an equal amount of time on the characterisations of the dances as well as the moves which cannot be easy to get children as young as 4/5 to communicate, congratulations for this!

Grainne Wiggan gave a notable performance as the Giants assistant, Snivel – she savoured each moment on stage and gave a really well delivered performance to be more than pleased with, a credit to the production.

Alice Gregr gave us the fairy character with a splash of sarcastic attitude which you don’t often see, not the usual one dimensional delivery from this fairy of the crystal cave, Alice made her character stand out, a performance which I enjoyed very much.

The front runner in this show, for me, was Laura Floyd as Freckles. Laura’s performance was an exciting interpretation of the dorky village reject. She was hilarious and didn’t fail to have both the kids and big kids in the audience howling with laughter, all accompanied with bags of energy - Laura excelled! I hope to see more of her in future productions, a true talent and a joy to watch!

Congratulations Sale Nomads – a truly terrific pantomime which gave credit to its Director, Billy Jellyman, who I have no doubt was thrilled to bits with the end result, and rightly so!

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