Musical Moments

As always with a Phoenix Production, the cast have fun and therefore the audience do as well.  There is always room for improvement, but everyone always tries their best and the programme was varied and put together well.

The opening was lively and I liked the integration of the two songs.  The tap number choreography was good, and it was nice to see Laura Hyde taking a ‘principal’ role in this and other numbers!

The set worked well, it was simple but accommodated the cast well.  Choreography was good throughout, but sound and lighting were a little suspect at times.

There were too many blackouts, for a vehicle like this it should have been easy to move seamlessly from one number to another, so that everything was linked.

Bill Lovegrove gave us two Al Jolson type numbers, which gave us a real blast of the past, which I enjoyed.  The girl dancers all performed well.

The costumes were mostly good and colourful.  I liked the fact that the youngsters wore pantaloons under their skirts where required – nice attention to detail.

Andy Whittmore got the feel of the crooner, but seemed rather nervous to start with then gained confidence as the song progressed.

The children, Kaitlin Lewis, Ella Couldridge, Rachel Ridout, Bethany Ridout, Bethany Bangs, Lucy King and Jada Sims performed very well, although I thought some of their numbers were a little fast.  However, they took everything on and coped well with lots of choreography.  I enjoyed their numbers.

Alan Purton, Bill Lovegrove and Nigel Cain gave us a lovely comedy number, which was such a contrast to the others and was very funny.

I was particularly impressed with Kaitlin Lewis in the number she performed with Katie Ross and Megan Perry – all three young ladies gave lots of expression and meaning to their words.

Courtney Buttigieg always carries her expression through to her eyes, which gives a song more interest, and I particularly liked her Act 2 number, very nicely performed.

Sarah Meers performs well, and is very upbeat, I liked her number with Scott Newman, they created the feel well, and Sarah also gave us a good comedy number with Jackie Hensley, despite, or maybe because of, the nearly disastrous costume malfunction!!

Alan Purton gave us a rerun of Fagin – always popular, and the children again did well – there was a lot of choreography, which Alan and his pickpockets performed well.

Jon Bannister showed his softer side when performing with the children, which was a nice moment.

Barry Hyde always puts his numbers over well, giving us loads of personality.

Both Julie Walton and Sarah Kelly showed us good strong and tuneful voices in their numbers, good effort from them both.

It was nice to see some new faces, and those that didn’t do full solos also helped create the feel of each set of music.

The finale was very lively, although overall I would have liked to see a bit more energy from the whole cast in the ensemble numbers.  But a good effort from everyone, as there were a lot of numbers, and some quite intricate choreography.  David Thomas had got some nice sounds from the cast and his trio, and the sound balance as such was good.

So, we had fun as did the cast, with an appreciative audience the night we were there.

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