Shrek the Musical

Who wants to paint themselves green in the middle of a heat wave, or wear a donkey costume and dress themselves up as multiple story book characters, well it appears that members of Melody Allsorts of Downham wanted to.

I was wondering how this would work out having heard that both their director and musical director had walked out only a few weeks before the show opened, it was hard to tell what effect this had on the production. For this show the society had made an effort at producing a reasonably substantial set across the back of the stage and having an apron built on to the front of the stage of which more use could have been made. There was also a built set piece of Shrek’s toilet downstage left, various props were brought on as required, a bath full of bubbles, a camp fire, building bricks for Donkey’s Brick Wall. The set piece at the rear was used for both Fiona’s Tower as well as Lord Farquaad’s castle, with addition of a gauze it was also used for opening with the Shrek Family and as the cave for Fiona to hide in. It was probably a little thicker than normal but the lighting design had made a good job of making it translucent.

There was quite a large ensemble representing the fairytale creatures and doubled up as guards and other characters, this unfortunately did lead to some masking so that those with even small speaking lines were at the back of the stage. This happened at the start of the show, during the opening baby Shrek and parents were behind the gauze upstage right but two of them were totally masked by Shrek himself from where I was sat, until baby Shrek came out. Sight lines do need to be thought about.

The main principals gave good performances and worked well together, Shane played Shrek and Lizzie played Princess Fiona, I know that Lizzie can sing and she gave a strong performance throughout this show with great vocals. She was matched by Shane who is new to me, he gave a good performance with again good vocals. Shrek itself is a large role and the success of the show rests on the relationship he has with Princess Fiona and Donkey, these relationships generally worked well and Donkey was well played by Carrie-Ann. I know it was hot but I did wonder if Shane had used fixing powder and a fixing spray for his makeup and I felt that Donkey should have had a well-made up donkey face. Fiona’s makeup was fine as was the transformation to green at the end. I thought that Lord Farquaad’s could have been better (it may have been the heat) and I felt it was a shame that the tape holding Pinocchio’s nose had not been blended in with makeup. There were some good costumes lent by another group.

Jenny gave a strong performance as Dragon. Most of the supporting characters were not individually listed in the programme, Olivia performed well as Lord Farquaad. However, I feel the role works best when played by a male actor. Among the performers I was able to identify from the programme Dylan gave a good performance as Pinocchio, together with young Matti and, particularly, Ashley impressed, with Ashley's stage experience clearly evident. Ensemble singing was generally good although dialogue was let down by sound not working properly. I couldn’t hear Pinocchio at all with his opening dialogue which was a shame. Some Mics came on late for some dialogue throughout the show, notably the Bishop in the Wedding Scene. Choreography was quite straightforward but generally well performed.  The lighting design was generally good although some elements felt a bit pantomime.

This was a more successful performance for the group, I hope you were happy with the show, the experienced Principals who came in raised the standard.

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