Once Upon A Time

This was an evening of fun and real family entertainment. Cinderella's daughter Princess Marigold is about to marry Snow White's son Prince Marvellous but of course nothing goes according to plan . The Wicked Witch tries to stop the happy union by spiriting  the  princess away but as one would expect in panto, all ends well.

Caty Kerr was a delightful princess with a lovely singing voice and looked good along side her handsome Prince well played by Andrew Sullivan. Gill Sullivan gave a very strong and convincing performance as the nasty witch Evelyn and received the obligatory "boos" from the audience. Accompanying the Princess on her travels were her two rather naive friends Nick (Peter Sullivan) and Nack (Huw Thomas) who gave larger than life performances engaging well  with the audience who became enthusiastically involved with the 'Nick Nack Paddy Whack' routine!. Also keeping things moving along and encouraging audience participation was a rather resplendant Dame Gertie (Keith Bowden) who was completely o.t.t. and the perfect pantomime Dame.

One of the most enjopyable things about this pantomime is that Princess Marigold meets so many other fairy tale characters on her journey so we had Jack in the Beanstak, Red Riding Hood and the wolf, Captain Hook and his pirates, the dwarves and Alice in Wonderland with her friends the Mad Hatter and March Hare. I particularly enjoyed  the slick scene at the tea party. The costumes for all of these characters were so good .

This entire cast oozed enthusiasm with some strong singing and good dancing. So much work had undoubtedly gone in this production which resulted in a relaxed and spontaneous performance in true panto.style. It was obvious that everyone on stage was having a ball and this spilled over into the audience who also were having a great time. The singalong at the end plus the throwing of the sweeties all added to the most happy atmosphere in the real spirit of Christmas. This was a thoroughly enjoyable pantomime. Congratulations to all on stage, behind the scenes and the musicians who togethet produced a pantomime to be proud of.

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