Robin Hood and the Babes in the Wood

It was a joy to go and visit our latest new member of NODA at Grundisburgh. A very warm welcome to you and all your members.  They perform in their new Village Hall which is a lovely building although unfortunately it does not have a stage or changing rooms, so all these have to be constructed and with lots of movable screens to create different areas and lighting bars which have to be installed.  One must appreciate all the work and effort it takes beforehand to get this all set out and then removed and stored again after the performance. It is however good to see that they have lots of willing helpers to take on all the different production positions and who are all so essential to assist with producing their shows.

This  good traditional Pantomime of the much loved story of Robin Hood  with his band of outlaws,  was well cast  and directed by John Cuff.  Robin was played by Amy Adams looking splendid in her forest green costume along with Hannah Ashby  as Maid Marion. These two talented performers were ideally suited and worked well together. Ben Hudson was the Dame, Winnie Widebottom. I’m not too sure how I can describe ‘her’ in a polite way. She was hilarious and certainly playing up to the delight of all his friends and fan club in the audience.  

Kate Adams was extremely funny as Friar Tuck, a natural comedienne as she constantly tried to get her hands on as much food and sweets as she could.  Ian Frost was Alan-A-Dale  with his trusty guitar, with Catherine Beresford as Little Joan, loved that character name change, and David Franklin as Much.  They were all the very believable characters who gave terrific support to the leads. Brian Hunt was very confident in his role of the evil Sherrif of Nottingham along with his servant Dennis (Darin Osborne) who never did seem to get anything quite right.

Two other delightful characters were the 2 rabbits who I’m sure the children will have loved, with their painted faces and little bunny ears. They were behind a screen to the side of the stage and kept popping up with amusing quips until anyone mentioned rabbit pie at which point they would say “Back in the burrow” and would disappear again. At their final curtain call they both emerged from their burrow and dressed in white tutus these two, (can I politely say more mature ladies), were helped up onto the stage to take their bows. Bless them, they were jolly good sports!! Tilly and Tommy (Nayara Drummond and William Jezzard) were the two babes along with the seven other young chorus all gave great little performances. There was some good choreography with an excellent choice of songs which were well performed by both the leads and chorus.

The costumes were all colourful and well suited to a traditional Panto. The set was simple yet effective and ideal for this type of constructed stage. However I must mention the stage hands which every time they came on to change the scenes they received rapturous applause in true village style.   Needless to say this local audience were very appreciative and we all thoroughly enjoyed this show.   Well done to John and all his cast and crew on a successful show. Thank you for your very warm welcome, it was good to meet you all and will look forward to seeing your future productions.

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