Pinocchio

This was a fun-filled family panto, with all the essential ingredients.  The obvious enthusiasm and confidence of the cast was evident from the start, with the principals and children capturing and retaining the audience's attention throughout the performance. The opening scene with a dance troupe of quite young girls, Georgina, Lexie A, Olivia, Lexie C, Keeley, Robyn, Laura, Grace, Hannah and Karis set a nice standard for a village pantomime.  They also opened the second half well proving their worth to Miss Jo their director.

Amongst the talented principals, there were some excellent characterisations of our panto heroes and villains.  In a larger-than-life performance, Stevie Lambert as pantomime dame wowed us with a number of different and eccentric frocks and great exaggerated mannerisms. Carol Clark was suitably chilling and unpleasant as Fox, with his bungling assistant Cat, well-played here by Jenny Thompson.  Their antics and comical facial expressions keeping the audience well entertained! Kellie Aylward gave a very confident performance as our hero Pinocchio, with good stage presence and clear diction. Her walk, stance and general movements maintained the impression of a wooden toy and her nose was cleverly executed when it had to grow.  A very clever plan very difficult to actually perform live on stage.

Of course Pinocchio had to be made by the clever wood carver who longed for a son, so made a doll as the next best thing.  This demanding role, Gepetto, was very well performed by George Lake, who maintained his Italian personality throughout. He not only looked the part, he retained his accent exceedingly well and sang with good musicality. Karen Franklin as Cricket and Phil Martin as Stromboli were both well portrayed in their very different parts and the rest of the principals were all convincing in their various roles, each one important to building a watchable production.

My congratulations to the Band of Seven who managed to keep in time with the performers which is always a challenge in pantomime!! The set was incredibly clever and versatile and had obviously had many hours of work put into not only the building but also the design of such a workable stage area.  I loved the great hand that came out and dragged people off the stage and the sound effects of munching of bones was hilarious and the avalanche was brilliant.  In fact all the sound effects were cleverly worked out, the lighting was spot on and the make-up department did a great job. Most of the costumes looked right but I did feel that the Blue Fairy should have had a different dress, but that is a very small criticism of a fun show.  Well done Directors.  

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.