Rapunzel - The Tangled Web

As a directorial debut I thought Carl Fletcher coped well.  The actors moved around the stage well, however, some needed a little individual direction performance-wise, so look at this angle the next time.

The set was good, although I felt Rapunzel’s tower was a little too much to the side as it was difficult to see from the front, so lost some of its impact.  Blackouts  were overlong, and would have benefitted from some musical cover to keep the audience interest engaged.

The Director’s Note in the programme was very nicely put together, I enjoyed reading it.

Some of the costumes were really good, others needed a bit of attention to detail, I wanted the Prince to be a bit more elegant and colourful against the lovely costumes of the King and Queen, with their super wigs too.  Attention to detail is key when the cast provide their own costumes.

Overall I needed more animation from the cast, which always ups the pace, and there were quite a lot of prompts needed on the night I was there!

I did feel that as you have the luxury of an accompanist, and the music was well-chosen and not overlong, he should have been more dynamic to lift the volume and effect of the songs.  Sometimes the accompaniment seemed a little tentative.

A note for the future - I felt the show needed an opening number to get the audience in the mood, although Stephen Parry as Wanda got some funny lines over well.  I liked his costumes, they were very lively and suited the character.

Rose Brown created a different Town Crier, and I thoroughly enjoyed her mime scene, it was amusing and well accomplished.

Peter Piper and Polly Piper, played by Peter Soper and Sarah Furniss created a believable couple, I thought Sarah did particularly well.

The younger cast members did well, some very lively performances, Joseph Davidson and Keiron Pritchard stood out for their lively faces and enthusiastic approach.  Matthew Pritchard, Rose Taplin and Abigail Davidson all did well too, but needed more animation at times.

Jean Smy created a good witch as Vileda Scrunge.  Nicely evil, with her two assistants.  We enjoyed boo-ing her!

Rapunzel was played by Naheen Ali, who looked really charming, and achieved the ethos of the part. 

I liked Chris Fletcher and Victoria Goode as the King and Queen, they played well off each other with plenty of energy.

Donna Fletcher gave the Prince plenty of principal boy characterisation, and I liked her duet with Rapunzel.

Netty Batchelor, Vicky Cox and Sam King created very diverse characters with their colour coded names and costumes, but for me Sabina Jackson was the stand out performer of this quartet, both for standard of costume and portrayal.

Daniel Morris was an excellent Robin Hood, and led the audience participation well.

The wig scene was great fun, as was the cake baking scene.  For me, I would have placed the oven stage right, where the props were handed on and off, as it would have been better from a continuity point of view, but nicely done.

The finale was lively, and overall a fun evening’s entertainment.

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