Little Red Riding Hood

It is always good to visit your productions with their creative use of the space available within the Memorial Hall, and to see how many people you can fit onto a rather small stage. It must be lovely to have the script adapted specially by its creator and to have her direct the production, to incorporate the local references that are such fun. Her understanding of how the script should work was very evident, and it was good to have a script where the storyline was so clear!

The production on this occasion used the basic stage only, with no extensions, which worked really well. The popcorn sellers – children in costume – created a good atmosphere even before the action started. The live music - always a plus - was well chosen and well played, with energy and feeling, with songs nicely adapted for the show. The opening was lovely, with good, bright scenery, characters and action. It was a surprise that the Dame was played by a woman, but it worked really well here.

This was a really fun pantomime, well put together and with good timing and flow. The character names were nicely suggestive of their characters, and they were all acted very well. The three witches were wonderful, with their coloured wigs to match their dresses. In fact, costumes throughout the show were very well thought through and with good variety of brightness and shade, and reflected the characters well. 

Good use was made of the entrances through the hall from various doorways. This was especially true of the witches with their cackling laughter. Lighting was very effective throughout the show, with the follow spots well used. The lighting in “Thriller” with the witches and the cauldron and the ghost dance was particularly good.

The choreography was well planned and thought through, especially in “Thriller”. The last number looked a little ragged, but I suspect that by then most of the cast were exhausted! The final picture worked very well, however, and brought the pantomime to a fitting conclusion.

There were one or two general things to note, such as allowing laughter to end before restarting the script and keeping voice levels up throughout the show, that would make the production even better in my view. However, this was by far the best show I have seen produced here, so well done all!

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