Sleeping Beauty

I always accept with pleasure an invitation from Littleport Players to see their annual pantomime and they never fail to entertain me.  This year’s choice of Alan P Frayn’s Sleeping Beauty, was no exception.  I attended the final performance which was a matinee. 

The twenty-five strong cast worked well together and looked as if they were enjoying themselves, and that came over the footlights. The goodies and the baddies were all there and in good form.  

Female Dames are a challenge but Melanie Abraham as Nurse Hettie Harpic did well, though some of her interaction with the gent in the audience was lost on us as he was sitting on the far side of the auditorium making it difficult to hear exchanges.  

The effervescent Megan Bidecant was great fun in the part of Muddles - She managed tremendous interaction with the audience who warmed to her from her first entrance.  A fine performance.

Mandy Morrish as Bad Witch Hazel was absolutely excellent and produced such a myriad of loud and scary cackles I feared for her vocal chords! 

Princess Rose aka Sleeping Beauty (Hannah Ridley) and Adam Hebbard as Prince Alexis/Alexander (the whole hub of the story) added great value with their performances.  Both have good voices which complemented each other well.  

As always there was some great teamwork between Becky Green and Chelsea Booth as Fetch and Carry the very Scottish Palace Postmen.  I much enjoyed the sack of post skit which was very well done indeed.

Erin Malkin as Good Fairy Lilac was suitably sparkly and both Erin and Bethany Stanton-Gooch as Young Princess Rose showed great potential.

Good support was given by Jack Barry and Claire Lees as the king and queen and the Rainbow Fairies (Ashlie-Skye Wood and Charlie East) did well although I would have liked a little more projection from them vocally. 

 As always the well rehearsed and mainly young chorus added to the whole thing with some fine singing and dancing, even the very youngest chorus members showed total focus and commitment. Well done. 

It is a challenge for a society to create multiple sets at the LIttleport and East Cambs Academy but the multi-level construction, though pretty high, worked and was well used.  Lighting and effects were also very good and on cue.  Costumes were, as always, colourful and well thought out, due to the excellent skills of Sheila Goodall who also produced Baby Rose for the Christening. 

The team of Karen Booth, Mark A J Checkley, Becky Green and Nikki Scott as Director, Musical Director and Choreographers put a solid pantomime together once again this year.  As always we were provided with an afternoon of family entertainment 

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