Our House

This show is so much fun to watch and with a score of Madness numbers the audience are toe tapping and moving upper body parts from the overture. The band sounded fabulous and never overpowered the actors. The harmonies in numbers sounded stunning and it was clear that Simon had worked hard with principals and chorus to achieve this.

The set was great and worked well in the change overs from black to white. This is such a technical show with over 30 costume changes for the leading man alone plus props which cover costume changes. The car scene worked well as did the school scene with moving desks and chairs. Overall the direction was great, keeping the story moving at a hard hitting pace.

The leading man playing Joe Casey in this production was stunningly played by Gary Jones McCaw. As a superb dancer, Gary bought a whole new dimension to this show which I have seen a few times in the last couple of years. The routines put together by Jane Wood were fantastic with energy running all the way through them. This role is tough, rarely being off stage and when he is it is for one of the many costume changes as the story runs in parallel. Massive congratulations to the team doing the changes as pretty much every one went without a hitch and to Gary for the fantastic portrayal of Joe.

Equal to Gary was Felicity Eccles as Sarah who has the voice of an angel and looked stunning in her dance moves especially the beautiful routines with Gary expertly choreographed by Jane. I believed totally in the characterisations created for the parallel stories.

Chris Addington and Ian Chatterton were great as Joe’s friends and pulled the comedy from every scene. Helen Rose and Francesca Kirk played the sassy, sarcastic friends of Sarah equally well with nice dance moves added to lovely vocals.

Nicky Mead did a lovely job with beautiful vocals as Kath Casey and Paul Allison as Joe’s Dad was hauntingly moving and again with great vocals. I loved the portrayal of Reecey by William Pretsell as the sinister, threatening bully boy. “Baggy Trousers “looked and sounded fantastic.

The rest of the supporting cast including the chorus all performed brilliantly in what is a particularly hard show to stage due to the energy required. The songs sounded fabulous, the routines were stunning and the staging and direction just added to this great overall theatre experience.

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