Sleeping Beauty

As Christmas decorations go up inside and outside houses it’s a pleasure to make my first visit to CAST and the Colnbrook Village Hall. What a warm welcome at the door and amazing news that they had sold out all four performances before the first show for the first time in their thirty-year history. Slightly more concerning was to hear that a founder member had been taken ill and replaced from the chorus at 5 pm that evening. I hope he is soon back on stage, but his cover did a truly remarkable job at short notice even if occasionally he did have to glance at a strategically placed script!

The stage was well dressed setting the scene of the castle, making the most of the forestage with an impressive set of lights including some Intelligent movers and some innovative use of front cloth projection. At the interval the reminder of what they did during lockdown with a fund raising “virtual choir” singing “Seasons of love”  projection was both impressively edited and touching in its dedication and reinforced the sense that this was a caring community theatre with some smart dedicated people producing the show.

The script concentrated on the story telling with some fresh updates to the classic story to explain what happened in the hundred-year sleep with plenty of space for some classic panto business and a few well-chosen short versions of well-known songs. There could have been more topical or local references in it. The three pivotal characters of Queen Dotty, Carrabosse and Fairy Peaceful drove the pace of the show with support from two very well made-up Cats! Occasionally they were upstaged by four little girls in the front row who were full of enthusiastic interactions!

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