Singing In The Rain

It is always good to hear a full orchestra for any show and under the competent baton of Simon Percy we were treated to a great overture of ‘Singing In The Rain’ and this set the standard, together with some clever direction by David Wrightam and choreography by Hayley Wrightam. The sets were impressive and overall so too were the costumes by Scott Howson-Smith. They gave a very lavish style and tone to the period.

There were some very good principal performances all round. Leading man Don Lockwood (Gary Howson-Smith) in a demanding singing, dancing, acting part gave a confident performance. The two leading ladies of Lina Lamont (Gemma Williams) and Kathy Selden (Kennedy Smith)  were both complete opposite as characters but played their parts wonderfully. Kathy had a calmness about her and with that lovely voice her character shone through. She could dance too. Lina displayed great comedic qualities and with that brash common drawl made the part her own. I really enjoyed her performance. Cosmo Brown ( Kaius Calver-Hart) gave an outstanding performance. His dancing and singing was just spot on for this part and again I thoroughly enjoyed his performance. There were so many parts of note in particular (Andrew Bailey) as R J Simpson and (Philip Jones) as Roscoe Dexter both giving excellent characterisations. There are too many to mention here but all the smaller character parts were delivered with great confidence and I could not fail to mention the young Don (Freddie Hall) and the young Cosmo (Jack Collins) who both did extremely well in their first musical.

The score of this show has many of my favourites ‘Make Em Laugh’,‘Moses Supposes’, ‘Good Morning’ and ‘Singing In The Rain’ and they were all delivered with great choreography and energy. Congratulations to all the production team and to everyone front stage and backstage on a great show. I also enjoyed the nice touch with the finale. Thank you Curtain Up for a wonderful evening.

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