Sister Act

As you would expect from this production it was big and bold from the outset. Right from the start Ashley Wolf as Deloris van Cartier stamped her authority on the show. For a first time as principal lead Ashley showed a maturity that can only be good for this company. Her transition from night club singer to reluctant nun was very well played and her confidence showed in her performance. Long time member of HAOS, Lynn McSherry was an ideal choice for the role of Mother Superior and this part suited her admirably. She commanded the stage when she was on and her vocals in "Here Within these Walls" and "I Havnt Got a Prayer" were a joy to listen to.

Natalie Paterson, Amanda Blackock and Pamela Millan as Sisters Mary Roberts, Mary Patrick, and Mary Lazarus respectively performed their parts as the perfect foils to Ashley and they managed to get the right amount of humour and comedy from their roles. A well done also to all the other nuns on stage and the transition from tone deaf to award winners was excellently directed and choreographed.

This show by its very nature is mainly a female show but the men do get some good roles. David Paterson played the part of Curtis jackson "the baddy" with just the right amount of venom and sung his songs very well indeed. His gang Craig McCreadie (Joey), Richard Millan (TJ) and Merijn Schepens (Pablo) were excellent, and they took every opportunity to extract as much laughter from the audience as they could. Their trio of "The Lady in the Long Black Dress" was a show stopper and is the best I have seen.

Stuart Mitchell as Lt Eddie Souther was very good. His experience in other arenas showed and his singing voice is superb. Iain Scott was also excellent as Monsignor O'Hara.

All in all an excellent production, directed by Brian McGlasson and I thought the choreography was super. The timing of the chorus numbers worked well. As usual the music plays a huge part in any production and was once again in the safe hands of Derek Calder. The many hours of hard work and determination was evident in this performance.

No show can be put on by only the performares and the back stage team helped in making this an excellent performance. The scene changes were slick and unobtrusive. However on the night I was at the show I felt there was a slight problem with the sound and the band were too much for the sound levels of the mics on a couple of occassions. This did not detract from the general performance and I would lik to say a big well done to the Society for producing another triumph. 

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