Matilda Jr

BOSSY Matilda Jr

Director/ Producer– Gaynor Wilson

Assistant Director- James Wilson  

Choreographer– Katie Lawrence

Performed at Brentwood Theatre Thursday 18th April 2024 at 7:30pm                    

Matilda has always been one of my favourite stories and the Musical is easily in my top 5 because of the clever score. I still cannot get through the song “Naughty” without crying and this evening was no exception!

The lead role of Matilda was confidently played by Gabriella Lewis. Gabriella had a great relationship with the audience, clear diction and a sweet voice. Gabriella had great expressions throughout and is an excellent storyteller.

The Wormwood Family were played well by Charlie McCartney (Mr Wormwood) a confident performance, who almost made his character a lovable rogue. Perhaps he could have been a little more menacing as I wanted to dislike him more than I did. Ellie Smith (Mrs Wormwood) gave a very strong performance funny, sassy and unbearable, exactly how Mrs Wormwood should be. I really enjoyed Ellie's characterisation. Ben Latchford (Michael) had fantastic comedic timing and great character choices. For a character with minimal dialogue, Ben really made Michael a memorable part. 

Darcey Herbert played Miss Honey beautifully, giving us all the warmth we expect to feel and the most wonderful singing voice. I really enjoyed “This Little Girl” and believed every word. To make an audience feel the emotion of the character is something I feel is so important and Darcey absolutely achieved this through her song.

Charlie Hunt gave us a stellar performance as Miss Trunchbull. Charlie is an excellent actor. His characterisations were spot on and from looking at his previous credits, it is clear that he's a very versatile performer. Selfishly, I'm sad this will be the last time I see Charlie perform with BOSSY but I have no doubt we will see more of him in the future.

I wish I could mention everyone by name but I don’t have the space in this report. Every performer on stage was enthusiastic and remained in character throughout, which was particularly impressive, especially during the big numbers.

Matilda has a very wordy and complicated score which all the performers did a sterling job of delivering with gusto. There was the odd occasion where it was clear if a performer had not learned the words and was attempting to mime. Although it caught my attention, it didn't detract from how brilliant the overall performance was.

The costumes were very good and there was excellent attention to detail when it came to matching props with the projection screen, such as in the Wormwoods home.

The set was simple but effective, using projection to create the scene changes. This ran very smoothly apart from one scene when for a split second the wrong projection was shown.

I really enjoyed how Mr Wormwoods green hair was created by lighting!  

Overall, this was a wonderful show with a very talented cast. Thank you for your hospitality and for making my first youth performance such a memorable experience. 

 

Natalie Hills

District 10

NODA East

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