Robinson Crusoe & The Pirates

Reps name Victoria Carey
Reps district 8
NODA East

It was lovely to see The Centre at Tollesbury full for TAPS first panto since the Covid pandemic. The
audience couldn’t wait to get into the panto spirit and cheer and boo the Players as the production
unfolded.

Members of the cast and production team had done a wonderful job building a stage wide enough
to accommodate a good size cast and allow for good use of staging and props. A particular mention
must go to the talented Kevin Flower for his beautiful painting which gave lovely bursts of colour and
detail to the set.

Firstly, every single person on stage from Principals to supporting roles should be proud of what they
achieved on stage. I include here some very sweet youth performers who certainly made their
families and supporters proud. Sadly I cannot mention you all by name but well done!

Our “Fairy” in this case Coral, played by Alison Murray, set the scene in traditional rhyming fashion
and was soon joined by the evil Davy Jones, James Oakley. Out to make Robinson Crusoe a victim of
his under sea locker, James made a very believable baddie.

Robinson, our hero was played nicely by Tabitha Smith and was well matched with Emily Tofts as the
love interest Juanita. Both ladies have pleasant singing voices and their duet was done well with
some good harmonisation. Having said that, it was a shame that the hand held mics were only used
for the duet and not during the other musical numbers. Emily’s vocals were completely lost during
her first song as she could not be heard over the supporting ensemble. This is not a criticism of
Emily, she has a lovely voice so it was unfortunate we could not hear her.

While on the subject of vocals, praise to Jon Salmon as Captain Seasalt who had a lovely moment
showing off his vocal ability. I could hear him clearly as he was front and centre of stage and didn’t
have a loud backing track to contend with.

John Dorsett gave a strong performance as Cut-Throat the pirate and again he was able to show his
musical talents during the interlude before the bows, getting the audience involved with ease.

Comedy came in spades from the brilliant Paul Galbraith as Nutty Nick and his sidekick, the doubly
incontinent, extremely large toy dog! I do wonder if Nick had a heads up as to where I was sat as I
did seem to be a target of said toy dog and left the production in need of a towel to dry my face! But
honestly, I didn’t mind, it all added to the fun of his performance.

Adding to the comedy was Nick Summers as the Dame, Margarita Juicilita. Some lovely moments
with both Nutty Nick and Captain Seasalt. I appreciated the many costume changes too. My only
comment would be that Nick could possibly project some more. I felt some of the one liners were
missed because they weren’t clearly heard. But otherwise, another good performance.

Gill Summers as Friday had a smaller role but is still worthy of a mention. I could hear her clearly
during dialogue, although I felt Gill and Tabitha didn’t look completely comfortable during their
number together and again sound was an issue.

Completing the principal cast was comedy duo Skull-Duggery, Leanne Mullenger and Cross Bones,
Jackie Quilter. Both had good comedy timing and they worked well together.

The set was really well made with plenty of colour and props were fine. Costumes and make up were
good on the whole.

Going forwards I would really like to see some more attention to detail in the choreography, I felt
during most of the musical numbers the cast were very much “free styling” and this didn’t really
work. Particularly when there were a lot of people on stage. Sound does need addressing too,
especially as this is a group that has some very good singers in it. I have come to realise that not all
theatre groups have the luxury of a Musical Director when performing Panto, so it’s disappointing
the work put in by MD Tina Spivey cannot be fully appreciated due to a lack of microphones.

Having said that, Director Nicki Tofts should be extremely pleased at what the group produced. Nicki
cast this pantomime perfectly and there were many memorable moments.

My guest and I had a thoroughly enjoyable evening and I very much look forward to seeing what the
company does next.

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