Mother Goose

Thank you very much for inviting me to your production of “Mother Goose”. This was the first Pantomime of the season for me which is the start of a week full of panto visits! This was also my first time at a production by SATCo and boy was I impressed. I am no stranger to Sparkwell Village Hall having attended concerts and run events of my own here, though I must say I was blown away by the transformation the hall had gone through for this production. SATCo had amazingly transformed this small village hall into a small theatre complete with raked seating allowing everyone to get a great view of the show. The team had even managed to build a scaffold at the back of the seating which provided an optimal tech position to run the production.

Mother Goose is the traditional panto tale as old as time. A poor village with people struggling to make ends meet and a villain that comes along to make things worse. The Fairy comes along to help the damsel in distress before everyone lives happily ever after. The end.

Lighting for this production was something I went with pre-conceived high expectations from lighting designer Ben Small. It is safe to say that I was not disappointed. Being a technical theatre geek I was in my element whilst observing everything that had been set up for this show. I think this might just be the most overly elaborate lighting design and set-up I have ever seen in an amateur production, let alone a small village in the south hams! Ben’s lighting design added such a vibrant pop to this colourful production and made this such a professional looking production. Small details such as the addition of wireless controllable lighting on the dame’s costume that changed colour along with all of the stage lighting certainly did not go un-missed here. And as if the lighting wasn’t good enough, Ben used an insane amount of pyrotechnics in this production including a maroon within the first two minutes of the show starting! Beautiful sparklers lit up the stage every time our fabulous fairy entered the stage. Outstanding job.

Speaking of the fairy. Fairy Friendship was superbly handled by this newcomer. I say newcomer, this young actress may be in her first year with this company and still in secondary school but she performed with a great level of sophistication. To talk in verse throughout is very challenging indeed but was handled superbly here. She performed with a level of skill that many older performers would struggle to master.

Another character of note was Silly Billy. This performer had tons of energy. It was tiring just watching him! He had all the energy and charisma of a CBeebies presenter and really got the audience into the panto spirit.

Demon Discontent had an excellent costume and the make-up was expertly handled. The actor playing this played with a real sense of menace. I did however struggle to hear the dialogue on occasions from where I was sat nearer to the back.

Comedy duo Bumpkin and Bogtrotter were well matched and provided endless amounts of classic panto slapstick throughout.  Bumpkins’ facial expressions in particular were hilarious. A face like a rubber band one might say.

The costumes, provided by Molly Limpet’s Theatrical Emporium, were wonderful. So bright, colourful and absolutely suitable for the setting of this production. The dame’s costumes were elaborate and comical and boy were there a lot of costume change for this performer! I loved the 60’s flower power finale outfits.

A huge well done to the set builders and scenery painters. The backdrops were excellent. Vibrant and bright and gave an excellent setting throughout the show and really helped to enhance this production. The scene changes were slick and smooth and were well covered by the addition of two sets of curtains. This production was very well rehearsed and the performance flowed without fault throughout.

This Panto was full to the brim of musical numbers that had the audience clapping and dancing along in their seats. There was a lovely selection of songs including upbeat ensemble numbers such as “Let me entertain you”, “Reach” and “she’s a lady”. The choral numbers included choreographed movement that was appropriately suited to the cast. Choreographer, Carole Wilson, has been working with this company for a number of years now and was able to create effective dance numbers the suited the small stage. It was lovely to see a ballet number “Ice Dance” which included one of the girl chorus members being en-pointe. “Oogie Boogie“ was an audience favourite and was great fun to watch. My absolute favourite number however was “If I were not upon the stage”. This is always a great song and it is exciting to see how each panto will tweak it for their own productions. This song had the audience absolutely roaring with laughter and I loved each of the characters that were presented. Especially the MP. The chorus numbers sometimes lacked a little energy in the singing. The chorus volume erupted however when we got to “Reach”. If there could have been this level of energy and volume throughout it would make such a big difference.

What a fantastic way to start the Christmas and Panto season. I thoroughly enjoyed my evening.

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