Mother Goose

You are always assured of a warm welcome at Haslingfield Little Theatre productions and this visit was no exception. The friendly welcome, the tempting smell of mulled wine and the buzz of anticipation all served to get one in the mood for my first NODA panto commitment of the “season”.

Ben Crocker’s Mother Goose provided a good vehicle for HLT.  Set in a faraway, frozen, fairytale land we met the unforgettable Mother Goose, her daughter Freya and their family pet, Heidi the goose. These three must work hard to outwit the scheming Baron Von Rumpensmakka.  However things go terribly wrong when Mother Goose, tempted by the Bog of Beauty and the promise of glamorous youth, signs over Heidi to the slimy and potentially goose-eating Troll Smorg

With the help of the Baron's kind-hearted nephew, Sven and the magical Fairy Aurora, the Goose family travel far and wide through snow, trolls and awful Christmas jumpers to find and rescue poor Heidi.

The backbone of any panto is the chorus and once again both senior and junior chorus members came up trumps.  How they manage the neat choreography without tripping over each other on the small stage is a wonder.  

Principals too all did well.  Mike Bass’s glamorous Mother Goose was extremely likeable.  The script didn’t leave him much room for interaction with the audience, but what there was worked fine.  There was a good pairing of Freya Goose and Sven (Sally Ricketts and Maria Skovmand) which worked well.  There was good empathy between the two but I found Freya a bit quiet at times.

Andy Walker had no trouble at all generating boos for his Baron von Rumpensmakka - not every woman’s dream despite what he thought!  This was an enjoyable performance as was his sidekick Gonk played by Mark Thurman.  I thought John Beresford’s Smorg was great and wonderfully slimy.  His troll make-up was absolutely excellent - well done the make-up team on all fronts.

There was also excellent support in the more minor roles from Marion Campbell as Heidi the (non-speaking) Goose, Fairy Aurora (Jenny Gore), the four snowmen, the baby geese and trolls and the Monster Mash team.  All had their moments and all dealt with them with energy and obvious enjoyment.

Now to the technical side.  I have already mentioned the make-up but one just could not ignore the set design(s) by Paul Brammar and the superb scenic artwork augmented by the excellent costumes produced by Terry Baker and her team.  I was very impressed with the goose costumes which I thought worked really well, particularly for Heidi as we could see her facial expressions.  All costumes were lovely and colourful.   Lighting, sound and special effects all worked well and were on cue which is always good!  The props of which there were quite a few were first rate.  In the main the pace was good but panto characters, particularly the dame, require attack and I felt that on occasion this was missing. However there were some very neat directorial touches. I loved the hot air balloon flight which made for a very colourful scene indeed and using the audience as mountains and icebergs was a nice and unusual twist.

Compliments to MD Hilary Stokes and the musicians (Tom Hatfield, John Holmes and James Thomas) who not only did a grand job throughout the show but also entertained harmoniously beforehand and during the interval.

Thanks HLT for getting my panto season off to such a good start I had a very enjoyable evening.  

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