King Arthur

 Maudsley Amateur Dramatics Society's latest production was a very entertaining original family pantomime called King Arthur written and directed by the talented Emma Meen, with help from the other members of the production team that included Assistant Director Adrian Barradell , Musical Director Judy Blakemore, Choreographer Lorraine Ryan and Producer Irvin Wright.The story includes all the usual characters we associate with the Arthurian  legend and here we see young Arthur fulfil his destiny as he pulls the sword out of the stone and becomes King, but not before there are lots of adventures on the way. The cast worked well together and appeared to be enjoying themselves, producing some interesting characters with good comedy and enjoyable singing and dancing. They included Molly Rogers as Arthur and  Alice Kay as Guinevere who made a nice pantomime couple. The audience were kept up to date with all the action by Arthur's school teacher Merlin played very well by Chris Hill who had a good rapport with the audience. There were the usual baddies who got lots of boo 's namely Morgana played excellently by Libby Cowburn who never stoped scheming to make her rather inept son Mordred, king, a  good comical performance from Ava Lloyd. Toby Hewitt was entertaining as a rather butch Dame Dolly Pendragon, he also had a great singing voice and Erin Lee Smith was full of energy as Chester the Jester. Guinevere's friend Fraya was nicely played by Hayley Gaskell  and there was a good comedy duo based on the one one eight television advert who were called Launcelot (Olivia Lloyd) and Lancealittle (Mark Wolstenholme). Arthur's young school friends were played by a group of very likeable confident young actors, they were Adam Jackson as Sir Lee, Olivia Smallshaw as Sir Casm, Will Lloyd as Sir Junn, Esmeralda Beasley as Sir Kull, Owen Jenkinson as Sir Vivor, and also  Rebecca Rowe looked very cute as the Dragon. The small chorus supported the principal cast very well and there were some lovely dancers from the Rufford School of dance who performed the excellent choreography with grace and expertise.
Scenery was applicable and well-made especially the castle set and along with good technical input and brightly coloured well thought out costumes added to the success of the show, well done to all the backstage crew who’s contribution to a show should never be underestimated.

Congratulations to all involved in bringing this really entertaining pantomime to the stage which the audience enjoyed very much, as I always say the success of a pantomime can be measured by the audiences reaction. Thank you very much for inviting us we had a lovely afternoon.
 

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