Red

I have been to see three AD HOC productions in the last year, this being the third and so far I have also been to three different venues. The first two were their regular ones, The Harrold Centre and Carlton Village Hall but this one for reasons of refurbishment and thus the lack of the availability of their Harrold Centre it had to be performed in the tiny United Reform Church across the road. However, nothing seems to faze this group and I am confident that given a potting shed or a greenhouse they would still find a way of adapting a production to suit. Their forte it appears would be to operate within fairly confined spaces.

The temporary block raised stage really was tiny and the set minimal, probably I suspect because of the church’s own needs, the backdrops being neatly ‘velcroed’ in layers to the rear wall and cleverly peeled off for each appropriate scene. The wings were simple black tabs to either side of the stage to hold a myriad of required props. An effective bank of lights hung from the gallery and job jobbed.

The production was very much a home grown affair created and directed by Fran Ross and performed on a shoestring budget, which was perfectly appropriate as the profits were all nobly donated to a local homeless charity. Also since the performance was in the church without the ability to serve refreshments the show consisted of 5 fairly short scenes without an interval and they whizzed through it at great pace in less than an hour and A half and we, the audience all reappeared on the other side with big smiles, un-numb bums and the feeling of having been thoroughly entertained.

Based on Little Red Riding Hood and, as is the norm these days, padded out with completely up to date subplots and lots of suitably corny gags we start off with a village bakery, the owner of which is our Dame, Bertha played by Tony Lockwood, with superb white face makeup that would have graced any circus clown. The disguise however failed to fool his small grandson in the 5th row, who to the great amusement of the audience repeatedly shouted out ‘That’s my granddad!

The bakery had its problems in the form of various animals, notably a cat and (bizarrely?) a Muntjac, played by two of the younger members, Bow Jones and Patrick Alaluf who were intent on stealing the freshly made buns. Thus liberally warming up the audience with plenty of ‘Behind you!’

Bertha, as tradition demands has an evil count (Alan Faulkner) as her landlord who is extorting an excessive rent (No change to real life there then!). To settle the matter a duel is setup in the form of a ‘bake off’ between the two of them, which is judged by, yes you guessed it, Mary Merry (Catherine Parsons) (complete with a hidden bottle of wine) and Paul Hollyberry (Mike Alison - scarily close in appearance to his real life counterpart!). Lots of slapstick and the custard pie humour in the form of a ‘blow-up’ birthday cake covered in cream which inevitably ends up in Paul Hollyberry’s face!

Duel settled (guess who won?), Bertha’s daughter Red (Adrienne Wilson) sets off to deliver the buns to her Granny (Jackie Meadowcroft) through the woods. Robin and Toby (Simon Alaluf and Charlie Daniels) - Bertha’s side kicks – and Pat (Helena Adams) – Principle Boy; disguise themselves as pigs in simple but brilliant onesies then hiding behind a cut out bush with just the tops of their animated ‘little pig’ onesies poking out.  This provided much hilarity as the tops of the onesies were ‘puppeteer-ed’ by the talented trio!

We were then treated to two ‘bandit’ squirrels, (Rosa Alaluf and Georgina Gardner) armed with ‘pop guns’ who took out a squirrel from above with some deadly accurate shooting and some unseen assistance from the gallery. One of the squirrels, Rosa Alaluf, has a lovely singing voice when she sung ‘A cappella.’

Eventually we get to Granny’s cottage with the usual traditional ending with Red dealing conclusively with the big bad Wolfgang (Simon Wells). Chuck in a Queen (Sally Dring), a Mirror (Judith Smith) and a Giant (Alan Faulkner), all in the ‘wrong pantomime’ and you have the recipe for a very entertaining afternoon – ‘Oh yes it was!’

I could nit-pick and say the stage was way overcrowded at times with a cast of 17, the pace dropped in one or two places and perhaps a few more rehearsals wouldn’t have gone amiss, but at the bottom line the audience laughed their heads off and left the tiny church having been thoroughly entertained, as were my partner and I. So who cares, it’s what the audience think at the end of the day and they certainly enjoyed themselves!

I think my star of the show was the props department who really did produce some clever items and so many great ideas.

So well done to Fran Ross and her crew at AD HOC keep up the good work and I hope BECHAR, your charity benefited handsomely.

PS - I was later informed the show raised over £1000, so well done AD HOC

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