Red Riding Hood

I look forward to visiting Pleasure Folk each year for their annual pantomime, they make you feel welcome and one of the family, so it is a pleasure to visit them - they really suit their name. The Pantomime this year was Red Riding Hood, which had a storyline that was easy to follow, lots of interesting characters, lots of laughs and really good audience participation.

Directed by Gemma Briscoe, who produced a very enjoyable all round show, although I did find the first scene a little long but this was most probably due to the script, it must have been hard for the cast on stage to keep the audiences attention, but, as we moved on through the first act, the pace picked up and the show was full of comedy and action.

There was  a very strong  cast which included Scott Allen as Tongue Tied Timmy who delivered a great comedic energetic performance drawing the audience along with him in his comedic antics and having an excellent rapport with the audience. Very well done, Scott!  Jim Briscoe as Florence Farquharson gave an excellent performance as a traditional Pantomime dame, he had a very good relationship with the audience and came up with some good ad libs, both Jim and Scott worked well together throughout the show. Then we had Ciara McEntee as the very manipulative and evil Baroness de Brexit. Ciara used an Eastern European accent which she was able to maintain throughout the show. I thought the accent emphasised the European Union connection in her name, she was rather sinister at times and produced a very good performance.

Liz Wainwright as Roberta Hood who owned the hotel and Emily Mayne as Peter the Woodcutter made a very good Pantomime couple, working and singing nicely together they complemented each other excellently and Eve McBride made a lovely Bo Peep who was always looking for her sheep, she was also Tongue Tied Timmy’s love interest. Eve appeared very comfortable in her role and she worked well with Scott. Well done, Eve as it can be difficult playing opposite a strong comedic role. Steve Coghlan as gardener Lionel Lupin who is turned into the wolf by the Baroness has a lovely baritone singing and speaking voice and always performs well, his voice really suited this role. P C Billy played by Jamie Mather kept the audience on track with the action on stage, he also had a good rapport  with the audience and Mark Charnock was  suitably dreary and put upon as the Baronesses henchman Dull, he reminded me of Uriah Heep from the Charles Dickens novel “David Copperfield.” Alex Sheeran was spot on with his interpretation of the wizard and was unrecognisable which was excellent. Then we have the comical three pigs, Pinky played by Becky Coghlan  with Dorothy Prothero as Perky and Porky played by Katie Geldart and lastly we had a nicely played cameo role of granny played by a young lady called Ciara Kirwan

The chorus and dancers made up of adults and children worked hard supporting the principle cast. They appeared to enjoy performing the musical numbers which included good quality choreography by Liz Wainwright and Gemma Briscoe. I particularly enjoyed the UV light dance routine very much.

Musical Director Nancy Wells and her three colleagues supported the cast on stage very well. They provided a mixture of accompaniment for different types of songs throughout the performance along with the occasional backing track.

The set and props made an excellent platform for the actors to work on and lighting and sound were excellent throughout and the show ran smoothly at a good pace. Costumes were very colourful and it appeared alot of hard work had gone onto getting them just right for each character. Well done to Stage Manager Michael Chambers and all the stage crew, backstage workers, and technical crew. It should be remembered that all the performers rely on the excellent work of the people who work backstage and front of house to enable them to give a good performance onstage and for the production to be a success. All involved with this pantomime should be proud of their work and contributions.

Thank you very much for inviting us we had a lovely very entertaining afternoon.

 

 

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