Showstoppers

Choreographer: Heidi Fletcher & Sally Hilliard

East Cheshire’s Musical Theatre Company present: Showstoppers, a selection of some well-known and some not so well-known musical theatre pieces.
Each section was exhibited as a mini trailer for each of the selected shows and was presented in the safe way of sticking to how the numbers are originally intended, suggesting to the audience ‘this is how it’s done in the west end’. Personally, I prefer to see some, if not all the numbers in a revue staged out of its original context. We’ve all been to concerts, revues and cabarets and seen countless direct imitations of ‘All That Jazz’ and ‘On My Own’ which often labels the production into the mundane ‘concert’ category, regardless of its standard! The decision to stage the revue in this way left little room for the very capable production team to add some of their own creativity and make their concert stand out from the rest.

The playlist was a variety of styles from ‘Jason Robert Brown’ to ‘Kander and Ebb’ and not forgetting the currant craze of juke box musicals!
East Cheshire’s have some impressive talent amongst the youthful and clearly dedicated membership which shone through.
Singular, stand out moments for me were Kate Cradduck’s excellent delivery of ‘Nothing’ from ‘A Chorus Line’, Matt Darsley’s vocals in ‘Bring Him Home’ from Les Mis - Matt’s performances were in another league when not using the Mic Stand which made those numbers look very ‘club singer’ esk complete with tapping foot, something to be aware of. Alexandra Munro & John Matthias in ‘A Song That Goes Like This’ from ‘Spamalot’ along with ‘Casting Call For A Best Friend’ performed by Kate Cradduck & Vicki Harrison were other favoured moments.

The sound from the 5 piece band under the direction of Andy Saunders (does this guy have a home to go to!?) was great and delivered each number with ease, the sound balance and levels were spot on throughout.

Choreography by duo Heidi Fletcher & Sally Hilliard was clean and polished, at times (in particular the ‘Pricsilla’ section which looked a little tame) I would’ve liked to have seen a little more complex choreography which some of the girls were clearly capable of doing but, I can appreciate the approach of keeping it simple / keeping it tidy.

I am delighted to see that East Cheshire’s are bouncing back! The company is full of fighting spirit clearly led by their very passionate Chairman and re-vamped Committee, a breath of fresh air! Congratulations!

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