Robin Hood And The Babes In The Wood

We were warmly welcomed by Richard Daly and his front of house team to Deben’s annual pantomime written and directed by Andy Kimber. A traditional family panto with lots of “It’s behind you,” Malapropisms and double-entendres.

Lizzie Hawes opened the proceedings as a good and energetic narrator, dressed in a wonderful jester’s costume. A shame we didn’t see more of her! The Sherriff of Nottingham was a suitably nasty character giving the audience plenty of opportunity to boo him.  Stephanie Stoddart was Menthanole, the Spirit of Sherwood Forest with her comedy sidekick Cacophone (Ali Sparrow Hewitt) who gave us some good facial expressions and plenty of laughs along the way.   They also performed a great number ‘Babes in the Wood’ as a backing to a UV dance which is always enjoyed by a panto audience.

The young leads Robin Hood (Becky Taylor) and Lady Marian (Bailey Barker) worked well together, along with the two babes Edmund and Eleanor of Swindon (James de Mierre and Izzy Menhams) who all captured their characters perfectly. The inevitable dame, Joan of Bakewell  (Peter Mason) brought bags of comedy to his character. Mention must also go to Jack B. Nimble (Samantha Harvey) and Jack B. Quick (Simon Dodwell) who literally bounced off each other with their energy, enthusiasm  and the ever present ad-libbing in their comedy duo. Simon’s local ‘countryfied’ take on many of his roles is always a joy to see.

The rest of the large cast including Robin’s Merry Men, the school children and townsfolk,  many whom were very young, sang and danced  well  and kept  up their characters enthusiastically throughout.  They all looked like they were enjoying their roles, which always adds to the feel good atmosphere on stage, especially the little chap in the purple top, performing right at the front of the finale, personified the enjoyment and enthusiasm of all the youngsters involved.  Samantha Harvery assisted by her Dance Captain, Bailey Barker had done an excellent job on the choreography in creating dance numbers suitable for  the different age groups, so all looked confident in what they were doing. I partially like the 4 Guardsmen who were brilliant with their marching in the drill parade and the girls in their Maypole dance. The music and lyrics mainly by Andy Kimber  were all very appropriate, including the song ‘One of us’ sung and danced by Robin and his merry men who all gave  an accomplished performance. 

The costumes were all excellent, well fitting and colourful, whilst there were some nice little touches in  the set dressing with some little puppet woodland animals in the forest scenes dancing around in the background. The archery contest was also excellent with a very innovative use of the archery board and how the arrows were flown into the board. The set and lighting all looked good to enhance the colourful scenes, with good, quick set changes to keep the pace moving well. The performance we saw was also ‘signed’ which was good to see as the lady felt very much part of the performance, interacting with some of the characters.  One criticism was I did feel the first half was too long especially for a young panto audience. Having said that they certainly enjoyed themselves and were participating well with the characters on stage.

Well done to Andy and all his cast and crew on a very entertaining production and we will look forward to seeing you again in May for your Agatha Christie production. Thank you.

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