Robin Hood and Babes in the Wood

What a great evening's entertainment we had watching Ormskirk Pleasure Folk’s production of Robin Hood and Babes in the Wood and what a wonderful way to celebrate Jim Briscoe’s 20th year playing their pantomime dame. This year he was an excellent Mistress Myrtle, Jim has a great rapport with the audience and superb comic timing which is very important when playing a dame, his experience and talent is very much an asset in any production of a Pantomime.
At the beginning of the Pantomime the action was a little slow but very quickly it began to gather pace resulting in an excellent very enjoyable production directed by the talented Liz Wainwright. There were good performances from all the cast who produced some great comedic characters which meant plenty of laughter from the audience with lots of boos and “oh yes they can” heard. The central roles of Robin Hood and Maid Marion were played very well by Georgiana Benbow and Ruby Joelson White who had a good singing voice and Harry Geldart and Millie Pendleton gave good confident performances as John and Mary, King Richards children, the Babes of the title. Robin’s outlaw friends were played by Ian Lawson as Big Mac, Michelle Hopwood as Little Joan and David Walters as Will Shocking Pink, they gave us three different splendidly comedic eccentric characters who worked well together making an excellent comedy team. All three had very good comic timing and were well liked by the audience. Then there was Steve Rutter as Sheriff Badlot and Steve Coghlan as the not so bright Zit who made great baddies, interestingly they also introduced some comedy into their roles, so there were lots of laughs as well as plenty of big boos for these characters. Steph Parker as Clod and her dog Carpenter played by Georgie Hopwood were likeable characters and they also gradually built up a very good rapport with the audience. All the principle characters worked well together as a team, their diction and clarity of words was very good which meant even though there was a lot of noise from the enthusiastic audience joining in with the action, the plot could still be followed.  The chorus of children and adults supported the principal cast very well and appeared to be enjoying themselves immensely. I should also mention two nice little cameo performances from Kevin Bridge as King Richard and Anita Hutson as Fern the Forest Fairy.

The band led by Musical Director Nancy Wells played very well and supported the cast excellently. The singing was very enjoyable and there was a very nice selection of songs and choreography by Liz Wainwright fitted the production, was effective and was executed well by the cast.

The set was just right, very colourful and along with sound, lighting and costumes which were also very colourful and appropriate for this pantomime, added to the atmosphere and success of the show, well done to all backstage crew for all their hard work.

Congratulations go to Liz Wainwright and to all involved in this excellent production. Thank you for a very happy evening’s entertainment, I look forward to seeing you for your next production.

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