Little Miss Muffet

My first pantomime of the season and you set the benchmark for standard.

Firstly to comment on the excellent and highly colourful set, a shame that you will paint out for next production; also good bright costumes from Costume World.

The six youngsters in the youth chorus were full of life and energy, very good projection and pick up of cues, and well drilled for the movements: a good future with them.

I had not been aware of the story of Miss Muffet for pantomime, but a wicked fairy with a spell of a spider and a princess seems as likely as many scripts.

The inhabitants of Periwinkle village gave the usual scenario with drunken Granfer (Clive Gordon) trying for free drink at the Fillet Inn which is run by a very large and dominating in technicolour costumes Dame Dolly Drinkup (Nicolas Dixey), good interactions here and bringing out the comedy. Joining in the antics, and a well-matched duo, Flip (John Nicholson) and Flop (David Middleton) worked well with each other and with the Dame, great fun, but also against the villain to foil his plot. When on stage, very difficult not to focus on David, who, although young, never stops acting and reacting, never comes out of character for a moment: no doubt he will want stage school soon.

On the romantic side, Miss Muffet (Elin Holbeck) and Captain Jack Dauntless (Kate Grange) were well matched in looks and style and vocally, good duo to save the situation.

As the swaggering stylish villain with a plot of kidnapping the spider, Ken Holbeck has found his place in life more than teaching: an excellent and polished performance and obviously much enjoyed by him.

And to the magical side with a Good Fairy with L-plates (Hilary Franzen) and an amazing wicked harpy evil witch (Sandra Barker) in perfection badness and OTT style and makeup, fighting it out over breaking the ‘spider/princess’ spell to release the sweet Alex Swift and return to parents (cameo roles Clive Evans and Sarah Carter).

And what fun Richard Taylor and the audience had with his Gorilla, energetic and very much in the scenes, no ghosts needed in this pantomime. But perhaps even more fun when we all joined in and raised the roof with noise, and I think that I sat in the winning half of the audience.

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