Robinson Crusoe and the Pirates

It’s sometimes difficult to say new things about some productions especially, as is the case with this panto, it was well up to the standard of last year’s annual offering.  This society goes full out for big production pantos, which is unusual, with many of the numbers featuring the excellent dancers from Kirkham Henry Performing Arts, also based in Malton.

A script from Alan P Frayn, opening and closing in Brazil, included all the usual aspects of pantomime and there were some very good performances.  Once again, I enjoyed Rory Queen’s style of Dame, this time Margarita Juicilita, and he works extremely well with the other members of the cast, sharing his enjoyment with the audience.

His side-kick was Nutty Nick, extremely well performed by 14 year old Josh Lewis.  He has a high potential for the future and I really hope he progresses to realise his dreams and I feel that this was a great start for him.

Abigail Rennison was right as principal boy, Robinson Crusoe, and formed a good partnership with the love interest, Juanita, played nicely by Alice Jennings.

Thomas Jennings gave us another of his strong performances as Captain Seasalt, once again having great diction.  Cut-Throat, a ruthless buccaneer, was presented by Dale Bartleson and he came across very well.  The other nasty piece of work was underwater baddie Davina Jones performed by Margaret Lukey whose delivery was superb as was her costume, hair and make-up.

Additional comedy was provide by two dim witted pirates, Skull-Duggery (Sam Piercy) and Cross-Bones (Jessica Schofield) and we witnessed two further promising performances from Harriet White as Friday (also played by Evie Bates at other performances) and Evie-Mae Dale as an excellent Hocus-Pocus, the witch doctor (also played by Layla Craggs).  Additional important characters were presented by Jacqueline Routledge (Mumbo Jumbo), Becky Lloyd (Coral) and Imogen Allen as Poll (also played by Indie Jackson).

If I have a criticism it would be that sections of the dialogue were a bit shouty and rushed meaning that some of the gags were lost.  The performance was also a little long I felt.

However we had great, colourful, costumes, a super set and lighting, extremely good choreography and presentation, good singing and wonderful musical direction and accompaniment from Chris Hocking on keyboards and his colleagues on bass and drums.  The sound engineer (Alex Linney) also deserves a lot of praise.

The cast enjoyed it, the audience loved it and this was a first class show.

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