Mother Goose

This year St. Cuthbert's decided upon the pantomime ‘Mother Goose’. This currently is not one of the most popular titles, but it is very traditional and the story brings with it many lessons and messages for which we all can take note. Loosely the story follows Mother Goose and her family who stumble across a special goose ‘Candy’ who lays golden eggs. This goose was sent by the good fairy ‘Virtue’. These eggs help with the money issues that the family face, but ‘Mother Goose’ gets wrapped up in an evil plot by ‘Vanity’ where everyone tells her she’s ugly. This results in a strive for beauty, at the cost of her family and friends. In the end we discover that friends and family mean so much more than money and beauty. This script by Bob Heather and Roger Lamb told the narrative very well and the cast managed to portray the deeper meanings behind the story. This gave everyone some food for thought especially at this festive time of year.  

Throughout the show we saw some nice characterisations that were maintained throughout. These made the show interesting for the audience and helped to create a real pantomime feel. A good range of ages were on stage and a number of difference faces were welcome addition to the cast. The principals had good diction and projection. Some of the younger members of the cast could have done with slightly more volume, as a few lines were completely lost.

These characters were all costumed well adding colour to the scenes making the aesthetics of the show more appealing. The set had some extremely well painted backcloths, which helped to depict the scene locations. Also the use of pyros in this production was good, they were not over used and had the required impact when activated. The follow spots were also operated and used extremely well.

Once again the prompt was used a lot, which in turn interrupted the pace of the show. Usually in a pantomime ad-libbing is accepted practice and can add to the humour of the production. The constant feeding of lines also causes the other cast to get a little flustered and drop their follow-up lines too. The prompt also being in view of the audience and saying the lines quite loudly means the audience actually hears everything twice. This sadly reduced the overall finesse of the show, possibly if the prompt wasn't in front, of them then they would muddled through.

The show had all of the pantomime classics with the Goodie, the Baddie, the Dame and Silly Billy character. In addition to the traditional pantomime aspects of giving the audience members sweets and also the ghost scare scene. The society has used the same type of ghost scare scene a few years running. This can make it seem also formulaic and the audience know what to expect. Varying the type of traditional audience participation scenes would enhance the shows appeal. These however did work well and the ‘custard pie in the face’ scene was a little risky, even though it was the schools head teacher ‘getting pied’. It managed to get the required reaction out of the audience, with everyone being worried they would be the one to get it, as the cast went through the aisles. The musical breaks including singing and dancing worked well. This broke the show up although some increased volume with the vocals would have made these even better.

This pantomime managed to tell the traditional story of ‘Mother Goose’ very well and the audience could understand the lessons being told. The informal community feel to production makes it very easy to watch, although as previously suggested the prompt is relied upon appose to a failsafe mechanism. The audience numbers were small, but everyone who attended seemed to enjoy the show and left with smiles on their faces. The cast did a good job to keep energy levels up and delivered everything with enthusiasm. Everyone on stage looked like they really enjoyed being part of the production. 

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