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Kiss Me, Kate

Author: Stuart Ardern

Information

Date
9th November 2012
Society
Waterside Musical Society
Venue
Waterside Theatre, Holbury
Type of Production
Musical
Director
Chris Stanway
Musical Director
Dawn Hall
Choreographer
Victoria Sarker

Whilst I don’t know “Kiss Me, Kate” well, most of the songs are very familiar - the quality of Cole Porter’s writing guaranteeing them a life well beyond the bounds of the show.  They are good showcases for voices too: for example, Christobel Thomas as Hattie demonstrating an enormous range in “Another Op’nin’ Another Show” and Shannon Freeman giving her rich bluesy voice an airing as one of the backing singers for Lois in act 2.

The leads, of course, have most of the fun (although Stuart Gale and Damian Broderick were getting laughs just for coming on stage as the audience caught on to their studied mannerisms as the gangsters).  Julie Gower was at her very best in the “on-stage” sequences as Kate - singing well, very funny, and entirely believable - she really did move as if she was too sore to sit down.  A good foil for the smug, manipulative actor/manager Fred (Chris Wortley), playing the shrew-taming Petruchio.  Victoria Sarker was excellent as Lois/Bianca, and her choreography was first rate, with lots of variety and lots of attention to detail.  The same went for the direction; the whole company seemed to have worked at every detail of the performance.

A small, hard- working band under Dawn Hall achieved a good balance and variety of sound (with particular plaudits to Kathryn Crouch for the speed of seamless switching between flute, clarinet and sax).  I came away from the show with a bad case of ear-worms, which it took two days of CDs to cure.

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