Matilda Jr

It is always a pleasure to visit a new company to NODA as well as a totally new venue, this was the case when I attended Escape’s production of Matilda jr on behalf of District 6 Representative Matt Hampson.

First may I thank Sammy and her team for the lovely welcome I received, the cup cakes were lush.

Matilda is a very popular show for youth companies and as is now becoming more frequent the company had a double cast. Due to prior commitments I was only able to watch Cast Z perform  but knowing that cast Y were also performing as part of the ensemble I could see the camaraderie and support shown by each youngster on stage to each other and it is to be greatly commended. As I was watching the final performance it was also a lovely touch by Sammy when she introduced the audience to the alternate cast.

The show has a large cast of characters so mentioning each one individually would be difficult but all I can say is that everyone on the stage contributed to a polished and fast moving production.

The choreography by Susanne Scale was very fresh with some lovely routines giving the cast time to shine.

Vocally the performance was very good and I really liked  all the ensemble numbers  and some powerful individual performances.

Samantha is to be congratulated on some great stage direction, I thought that using the different levels on the stage worked really well , along with some very good use of the rear projections. I especially liked the way they used the two smaller screens on stage right and stage left to supplement the main rear projection, this created some lovely pictures and tableaus.

I thought the ABC Boxes were used extremely well , and using the cast to move these around helped with the pace of the performance.

The supporting cast all gave good performances and congratulations to you all, I will mention Flo Brinkworth as Bruce and did love her vocals at the end, and Emily Baker played a great Lavander.

The Wormwoods were played by Vincenzo Denuzio, Ellie Boden and Spencer Neal, well done.

Mrs Phelps was played by Arella Johnson and she took the role of the friendly librarian really well.

The role of Agatha Trunchbull, the evil headmistress was taken by Tayla Gibbs , and I really enjoyed her performance.

For this show to work it is important to have two powerful leads , during this performance we had Frankie Fox as Matilda and Bella Macare as Miss Honey.

I was very impressed with both of their performances, Frankie as the highly intelligent book loving young girl ,but also who could be “ A little bit naughty” gave a very strong performance and was totally believable in what is a substantial role for a young girl well done.

I thoroughly enjoyed Bella’s portrayal of Miss Honey, she got the character spot on in my opinion and I loved the contrast between her character and Tayla’s

Having spoken to Sammy, and seeing the ensemble performance during this performance I am sure that Hallie, Bryar and Rosabelle gave an equally high standard of performance as Matilda, Agatha and Miss Honey for Cast y.

Thank you Escape for your lovely welcome and I look forward to visiting you again in the future.

The views in this report are solely of the author.

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