Once Upon a Time in Pantoland

This was my first time to Shawbury and therefore my first visit to the village hall and a performance by Shawbury Village Players.

Firstly there was plenty of parking which is always an advantage. The hall itself was modern and warm on an otherwise very cold winter evening.

The warmth and welcome from the Front of House team was superb including a lovely hot drink following my journey. I was interested to speak with the society’s secretary who informed me the group was formed in 1981 and since then, other than during the pandemic, an annual pantomime has been performed.

The village hall was full on the evening I intended with an audience ranging from the very young to some not quite so young. What was evident was that there was great anticipation regarding the forthcoming performance.

From the programme, I could see there were going to be 22 actors performing again with a range of ages. I was pleased to see a photograph of the crew included. The programme also highlighted ‘brand new set of stage lights, beautiful hand drawn and painted sets and one very loved prop frying pan.’ More about these elements of the show later.

As within all pantomimes the good fairy, Spirit of Pantomime spoke in rhyme which Karen Compton managed to clearly navigate. The opening number was a great start to the show.

Tyler Smith as Tommy Tickle was confident and had a great rapport with the audience. His sister Tilly Tickle was described as a comedienne-in-training. Leah Maddocks played the part well and of course concluded the pantomime in full flow of corny jokes. Their mum, (Tiffany Tickle the panto dame), was played to the full by Josh Rawlinson- Smith who worked well with the audience and their reactions (at times lack of reaction as well). Josh had the strength of character to encourage the audience to call back every time he came on stage. The Tickle family worked well together not least during a well-rehearsed scene where Tommy and Tiffany used images of numerous television programmes as part of the script – well done on how this was carried out!

Will Shields and Lisa Palmer were both particularly good together as PC Pete and his canine partner, Baxter. They made a great double act. Lisa’s make up was effective.

In Pantoland you cannot just have goodies. The baddies in this script were Jennie Dunn as the wicked witch Mouldywart and her sidekick Snitch played by Grace Jackson. They worked well together and got plenty of boos from the audience as they tried to ban smiling, laughter and having fun.

I liked the cameo roles played by Angela and Richard Bray as the Fairy Grandmother’s Assistant and the Fairy Grandmother herself!

Ben Leach as King Charming, Aliva Thomas as Prince Rizz and Erin Gailey as Dandini also worked well together with a suitable amount of regalness.

I cannot leave out Mark Gray as a suitably tall Giant and Jack Pearce as Jack and the Ghost (no pantomime is complete without the ghost gag ‘we’d better sing it again then’) this brought out squeals of laughter from a few of the younger members of the audience.

Finally, well done to the remaining other younger members of the cast, Violet Leary as Peter Pan, Meg Williams as Snow White, Lola Baker as Red Riding Hood, Harriet Thorpe, Erica Jordan, Alice Hearn and Ffion Owen as villagers 1, 2,3 and 4 (I liked the line when villager 4 was informed you don’t even have a name).

The audience truly came into their own during the traditional community song, I did find the line about all signing the waiver on arrival during the sweet throwing amusing.

The new lighting was effective and the sound was good. The audience were in fits of laugher at the farting suffered by Tommy (at least I think it was a sound effect and not real!!).

The scenery backings were excellent in the quality of the artwork – well done to Jane Bennett.

I must also mention the frying pan – what a superb prop. Again great sound effects as this made contact with actors.

It seems there is no break for members at Shawbury Village Players for they go straight into their next production – The Mirror Crack’d by Agatha Christie. This is followed by a youth production of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare and then the next pantomime – Robin Hood. Look forward to seeing you again.  

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