Robin Hood

ROBIN HOOD

EXETER LITTLE THEATRE COMPANY

BARNFIELD THEATRE – SUNDAY 23RD DECEMBER

I would like to thank the members of ELTC for the hospitality shown to Andy Kirby, member of CODS, and myself when attending their performance of Robin Hood, the Panto. It is always good to have a rousing romp to take an audience into the spirit of Xmas and this production ticked all those boxes. From the opening number, The Greatest Show, the audience were made certain of the fact that they were going to be thoroughly entertained with two hours of powerful chorus work, confident harmony singing, slick choreography and strong soloists.

ELTC has a strong tradition of performing Pantos and Robin Hood was written by member Allan Gunn. As stated earlier the Panto opened with ‘The Greatest Show’ from the musical ‘The Greatest Showman,’ a magnificently choreographed number, which really got the audience going right from the start. There was as a result a bit of a dip in energy levels afterwards as the cast then had to build the characters and set the scene which was difficult to create but done well.  With the natural shortage of men within so many societies at the moment Allan cleverly used the strength of the ladies within the Society to create a ‘Girl Power Gang’ led by Maid Marian. Each one of the four had a chance to shine throughout the Panto and none disappointed. Whether it was singing a solo or working together Josie Tapp, Amber Kilsbie, Laura Crook and Jenny Harlow complimented each other  and clearly enjoyed working with each other producing their own ‘girl band chemistry!’ While the four shone throughout the Panto there was also some great acting by the other ladies in the cast and there were clearly some who would have been able to fill these main roles with similar gusto. With this in mind it may have been possible to have increased these smaller roles slightly to introduce other cast members more to the audience and break up the performances of the main gang.

Clarissa Place took the lead role of Robin and was ably supported by her Merry Men of Cameron Patterson, Joanne Austin and Louis Windsor. There were some good individual performances here but as this group had less to do than the other four, and were men and women, this possibly resulted in less chemistry as a group. There were times when it felt that the individual characters weren’t strong enough to draw a response from the young audience which is so important for a Panto and then made it also more difficult for the baddies to get the response they desired when appearing on stage.

When considering the baddies I will return to the role of the Sherriff of Nottingham later. Suffice to say that the other four all put in very strong performances led by the superb singing of Steve Bennellick playing the part of Snotty Botty. However, because the singing was good and the comedy was well handled I just felt that the four of them were too nice to be readily accepted as baddies by the younger members of the audience  and this also led to the lack of audience booing. Marc Kilsbie worked well alongside Gill Smith, and Ben Woodger clearly tried really hard to make the audience dislike him and ‘Snotty’, but their kind personalities and great chemistry were always evident despite their best efforts, making this very hard to fully achieve, and many of the audience members clearly liked them more than they should!

Being a Sunday this was the second performance of the day for the adults and they are to be congratulated on keeping up their energy levels. The children had been split into two groups and I saw the Bows. For this performance Darcey Carroll played the part of Lucy Lawless and Ollie Morrish was Luke Lawless. Both put in very confident performances which really resonated with all ages in the audience and I am sure they will both have many successful years ahead of them on the stage. Both the adult and children’s chorus complimented the full company numbers and as mentioned earlier the choreography was a pleasure to watch and the chorus singing a pleasure to listen to.

The set was simple and the scene changes went smoothly creating a seamless piece of theatre. For the most part the lighting and sound was well operated and all actors could be heard clearly and seen, with just an occasional glitch which is to be expected with a live theatre performance and any such issues were dealt with very quickly and professionally.

The 3 piece band was well led by Musical Director Steve Watts on keys accompanied by Chris Harris and George Gravell on guitars.

The Panto suffered a setback weeks before their opening night when the actor playing the role of The Sheriff Of Nottingham withdrew from the cast. Step forward none other than Elizabeth Bialyk to play the role having already been leading from the front as both Director and Choreographer. She is to be congratulated on filling in so well and can be proud of the overall production and performances she got from the cast. I enjoyed the energy, the song selections and the overall performance. Finding humour which resonates with all ages is very difficult and always forms an essential part of a Pantomime. Some of the topical humour went over the younger heads and perhaps a bit more silliness may have been possible but this should in no way detract from the total performance that was put across by all those involved with this production. I look forward to seeing many more in the future.

Best wishes

Mike Canning

NODA Regional Representative

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