Rapunzel the Pantomime

We all know the story of Rapunzel: the girl with the exceptionally long hair locked in a tower by an evil witch pretending to be her mother. Even so, thanks latterly to Disney, there are slight tweaks to the story. In this, Ben Crocker’s panto version, it goes off on some strange tangents: still highly entertaining, but very confused.

Congratulations to the set building team for Rapunzel’s tower with turret, outside the main curtain stage right; with stairs inside making it fully working so cast could go up and down inside it and appear. Lily Halward made a beautiful Rapunzel with an angelic pitch perfect voice to match, appearing atop the tower and singing “When will my life begin” from the Disney film version was a lovely start to the show. Her gentle stage presence was perfect for this role and despite her demureness; she held the story and the stage really well.

There were over 40 people in this Panto and the minimal set furniture accommodated this. The painted backdrops were super and the props and additional set pieces worked well, including at one point a ships wheel and a rowing boat, held over the characters’ shoulders. In the boat scene blue voile like material was held across the stage to make it look like sea which was very effective. At one point the set was transformed into the room at the top of the turret, with flats including a window that many cast climbed in and out of. The fact that these wobbled made it funnier, and seeing crew or cast not due on stage walk past the other side of the window was also really funny.

Even with a lot of people on stage, the space was used very well and people moved in time together. Choreography was mainly arm placements but the set piece where Rapunzel and Rudi O’Malley were in the centre and everyone was singing except Rudi who clearly didn’t want to join in, yet he was arm-chained to Rapunzel so kept slapping himself in the face or being pulled about as she moved; was really hilarious. Paul Kluge as Rudi was one of the actors who really stood out being fabulous. His arrogant gusto was even in a way charming; his interactions with the audience were great: he exuded calm reassurance to the audience letting them know that even if lines were forgotten, everything would still be fine.

The audience almost wills lines to be missed or forgotten in Panto – the only type of theatre where this happening can actually make something better and funnier to those watching. Charlie Wycherley doing this as the Dame: Brunhilde the Nanny was exactly that: more out loud laughs than if the script had been stuck to. Charlie, who also co-directed, sported wonderful costumes and wigs and interacted with the audience well. His lead in the version of “I’m Your Man” as “I’m Your Nan” was great fun and well done.

Costumes were great, always detailed and fitted the characters and scenes well. As too were wigs and makeup, the evil witch Gothel played by Sarah Purdy wearing a Cruella DeVille black and white wig in one scene was lovely. Stuart Wells was brilliant as Waylon the Weasel, clearly very at ease on stage with added details and movements to his performance. The set piece with the customs officers Jobs and Worth played by Marianne Cole and Carol Symes saying that the Country of England couldn’t be entered unless Rapunzel wore a hat and Rudi wore a tie, had lots of lovely detail added in, including the elongated ways of moving and saying tie and hat, which was a delicious nod to Monty Python and really very funny.

It was wonderful to see live musicians especially when so many Pantos rely on backing tracks. MD James Honess and orchestra did a super job with the music and the symbols on occasion to underscore a joke punchline. The story went all over the place and so did the musical choices, but perhaps they were in the script – what the Copacabana, or the White Cliffs of Dover or the Dad’s Army theme tune were doing in there is a mystery, but it made people laugh and enjoy it. The cast performance of “Tonight we are young” just before the interval was brilliant, especially as it’s such a tricky song to sing, including an a cappella section where they kept the beat and didn’t speed up, was really impressive. Similarly the performance of “Roar” at the end including some lovely harmonies was great.

This is the first year of individual mics on actors and this was good to see, the tech difficulties are understandable at this early stage and the actors carrying on professionally even when mics went wrong was commendable. However, actors backstage need to learn to either turn mics off to talk to each other or not talk at all: there was a lot of whispering that could be heard throughout the show but with this being the first year and also a Panto, the audience were very forgiving.

It’s wonderful to see a whole community including children and young people come together to produce something like this, especially as it’s also so inclusive of ability. There were some great details added in, such as the slow motion fight with the shark, a knight on horseback that kept appearing for no apparent reason and clopping across the stage, the wig swap on the king and queen at the end – all show that so much care, attention and thought has gone into every aspect of this production. The fun that they had on stage also exuded to the audience who left smiling – a testament to a lovely, lively and fun show.

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