Return to the Forbidden Planet

Spennymoor Stage and Song never fail to amaze me and this year’s performance of Return to the Forbidden Planet was no exception. Even before a single note had been played the show was underway with the front of house team adorned in their futuristic space craft uniforms collecting the passengers boarding passes before carrying out the pre-flight safety notice prior to the launch of the spaceship Albatross into an imaginary world of interesting characters and a feast of rock and roll classical hits from the 50’s and 60’s.

This rock musical is loosely based on Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” and the 1950’s science fiction movie “Forbidden Planet”. Creatively Directed by Karen Butler, she was able to successfully draw together all the necessary ingredients to fulfil the criteria needed for this show to be a great success. Musical Directed by Martyn Jones and his crew provided the music which was part of the set on stage - as ever they did a superb job. Frances Wade provided the flair in terms of choreography.

This is a tremendous challenging show to stage therefore a special mention must go to Eric Hickson for design and construction of the spaceship and flight deck, it looked fantastic with great attention to detail and  was even complete with fully working computers colourful control panels and automatic space craft doors just like in Star Trek very ingenious.

Costumes were very colourful and smart and in keeping with the show. There wasn’t a weak link in the cast and we were treated to some excellent performances including Richard Butler who looked every part the leading man as Captain Tempest his singing was excellent and I particularly enjoyed his musical numbers” It’s a Man’s World” and  ”Young Girl”. There was a confident and wonderful portrayal from Ian Patterson as Cookie; this part enabled Ian to bring out his comedy side and l enjoyed his musical number “She’s not there”. Ann Marie Clayton played the Science Officer, subsequently revealed to be Gloria the wife of Dr Prospero, this was a very confident performance with good stage presence her musical number “Go Now” was an outstanding performance and ended with a standing ovation - for me the most outstanding song of the show. Dr Prospero was well played by Eric Hickson, again a confident performance from this all round actor, and I enjoyed his interpretation of his musical number” Don’t let me be Misunderstood”. George Morgan Watson as Ariel the Robot was excellent, great costume and loved his musical number “”Who’s Sorry Now”. Claire Smith played Miranda, Prospero’s daughter who was madly in love with Captain Tempest, with good stage presence and confident vocals. I loved this character and enjoyed her musical number “Mr Spaceman”.

There was a strong supporting performance from Liam Etherington as Bosun who confidently navigated the aircraft and was the Captain's right hand man. Claire Warren as the Navigation Officer had great stage presence and projected so much energy throughout the whole of the show. Stringing the story together was Roger Peebles who throughout the show kept appearing on the cleverly created television box. Well done to the dancers Lydia Hall, Chloe Birbeck and Lish Robert and a special mention to the fifteen spaceship crew all of whom were impressive and delivered the musical numbers with great energy. This was a confident fun show and a great night’s entertainment well done to everyone at Spennymoor Stage and Song.

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