Sleeping Beauty

The large excited audience fell very quiet as the members of the band walked in but instead of breaking into music to give a rousing opening, the show began when ‘King and Queen’ entered onto the pre set  stage, which had been   and proceeded to talk about the baby’s christening. In my view this was a slip-up as there was nothing to enliven the opening and get the audience in the mood for the following humour, song and dance.

The show contained many pantomime elements and  the expected characters, but the chosen script from Lazy Bees (one of their best sellers I believe ) wasn’t very funny  and demanded from me a total change of mindset from any other Sleeping Beauty I have seen.

 I was quite surprised when two of the good fairies were men ( Rose petal and Blossom) and the third fairy (Tulip) a girl, but she was a very heavily bearded girl… another surprise! On checking the script on line today, I noted all the fairies should have been men, one with a beard.   Of the three, Tulip showed the most ability, but I didn’t find the concept very entertaining and didn’t enjoy the inventiveness of the scriptwriters.

The show needed link music….  Because at every scene change  (no music) there was a decided drop in atmosphere, link music would have ensured continuity.  You had a good band who played very well together. More music would have improved the show. It’s a huge task to MD and direct a show… and Paul Jennings must have worked very hard … sometimes it’s hard to get an overview.

The show lacked pace, mostly because of slow cue pickups, but when everything was going well the company routines especially the Queen of Hearts in ‘The Ball Room Blitz’ and ‘Wake up it’s a beautiful morning were  very successful.  The sleep scene didn’t work for me, it should be dramatic, and the snoring attempt at comedy didn’t work well.

Marigold Gloves looked right as the dame with good costumes, but he was hesitant and didn’t work the audience, but when paired with Andy Gloves they worked well together, actually Andy Gloves also worked better as a pair than alone. Both had talent but both needed confidence. There were good performances, The King and Queen of Hearts, Princess Snowdrop and a very good Poison Ivy demonstrated good stage presence and Baskerville the dog was a delight …..(but I must comment… when everyone in the audience was required to shout Baskerville… the lady behind me was screaming basket ball, basket ball and her husband had to tell her to stop… that was very funny!)

There was good energy from the company and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Nailsea Musicals, you achieved the aim of good community entertainment; the Friday night audience loved the show and interacted with everything so well done.

I look forward very much to seeing Nine to Five, good luck and best wishes for the production.

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