Red Riding Hood

A typical cold grey Sunday afternoon at the beginning of December and what better to cheer oneself up than with a short trip to my local community centre, AKA The Eco Hub to see a pantomime! And this year an old stalwart, Susan Lucas was returning after a long absence to direct her favourite story in the genre, Red Riding Hood. Oh yes it is!

The Eco Hub does not contain a natural stage and so each show has to erect one from scratch and this The Gamlingay Players have perfected over the years since its opening in 2012 and is now complete with a very profession looking set of black tabs. This year’s panto set was actually fairly minimalistic. A set of flats to the upstage rear were patterned for each scene, a brick pattern for the village and a mosaic leaf pattern for the orphanage garden for example. Supplemented of course with the appropriate furniture such as beds, table and chairs etc for Squire Bullymore’s study, Granny Knott’s cottage and Birchwood Manor. Plus a backless wardrobe to stage right out of which our Dame would burst to much comic effect. Scene changes were well covered by the scenes in front of the blacks. All under the control of Stage Manager Clive Pattle with a well organised stage crew of Will Zerny, Joe Mountfort, Ava Ginnetta, Willian Lucas and Steve Ward.

The one thing the Eco Centre has installed is a very good lighting bar upon which a dozen spots were faultlessly operated by Andrew Peters. Sound by David Masterson and Colin Carroll worked well with speaking parts, but I’m afraid when it came to singing the actors could definitely had benefited from having some form of mics. Singing voices came across too weak to compete with the sequenced music and most of the lyrics were simply lost.

Hired in costumes from Harlequin Costumes were extremely well chosen from the usual array of splendidly OTT dresses for the Dame, to the thigh slapping woodcutter outfit for our principal boy, to the splendid fairy and of course the big bad wolf! Add the splendid make up for the Dame and The Wolf by Hannah Ginnetta and Bryony Montfort and we had a very colourful cast of characters.

Samantha Falder opened the action with her splendidly animated actions with her wand telling us the story in the traditional rhyming couplets. Whilst on the other side of the stage Fred Hammett elicited the traditional boos and hisses as he huffed and gruffed at us as the big bad Wolf. Splendid start.

Beth Parker is very much an up and coming talent which she showed in spades as Red Riding Hood playing the part very confidently if somewhat demurely, which suits the script perfectly

Paul Riddy, poached by Gamlingay Players from my own society to play this part and whose experience makes him a natural Dame, brought all the tricks of the trade, both on script and ad-libbing to the part of Granny Knott.  Very memorable performance even if he did eventually pick on an ‘unsuspecting’ NODA rep!

The two orphanage servants were Craig Smoothy as the gormless odd job Patches and Hannah Ginnetta and his comedy partner Pinny the orphanage cleaner.

The very experienced Bryony Montford, always with a smile on her stage face was the shoe in to play principal boy Peter the Woodcutter which she fulfilled with some aplomb.

The two jokers in the pack were the evil Squires henchmen, Ready and Willin played by Ian Parker  and Chris Martin. Some great comic moments, but the best of them had to be the ad lib when Willin gets his feet caught in the bedclothes whilst in the orphanage sick bay exposing more of his lower half than planned – great hilarious recovery! In fact, bedclothes caused just as much trouble for the Dame in her own bed whilst being chased by the wolf to even greater hilarity. 

The evil Squire Bullymore was personified by Colin Carrol sporting a wonderful Boris hairstyle and strutting his pompous manner perfectly.

Rebecca Keeves was the indomitable orphanage Sports teacher, Zola Kelly and Florence Hardy when not playing as one of the various dancers and villagers donned a rather splendid horse costume and Magdalena Majewska-Celi rang a splendid bell as the town crier.

And finally a lovely troop of dancing youngsters playing our Villagers and included Elsie Barber, Poppy Evans, Mia Flowerday, Willow O’Keefe, Robyn Delany, Theo Peters, Florence Hardy, Bella Larkman, Ali Hooper, Rita Dawkins and Zola Kelly. All choreographed by Susan Lucas and Alice Fisher with Musical Direction by Carol Ward.

To be honest I though this could have done with a bit more pace and perhaps a little more rehearsal at times for some of the scenes. The choreography was also a little out of sync at times., But that said the audience loved it and hollered, screamed and booed in all the right places and we all came away with a smile on our faces and what more could you ask on an otherwise thoroughly miserable winters day.

So well done Sue Lucas and her cast and crew you certainly know how to entertain the village of Gamlingay! Oh yes you can!

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