Sleeping Beauty

I was really looking forward to reviewing NATS pantomime, having not had the pleasure of visiting the society for a few years.  This year sees them celebrate their 25th anniversary and with new members joining and old members returning, the future certainly looks bright.

Their panto of choice was written by David Swan and licensed by NODA and a glance at the programme told me that a lot of people had put a lot of work into bringing this production to the stage.

The warm-up, at audience level, combined with safety notices was a great idea and the enthusiasm shown by Matt Squirrell as he carried out this task was infectious and put us all in the mood for what was to follow.

We were introduced to the story by the three fairy godmothers, each with their own personality. There was Bounty, who’s a bit forgetful, Wispa who seems to be afraid of just about everything and Smartie, who’s rather more playful.  These three characters were well played by Shiva Balaghi, Tina Battleday and Lizzy Thorpe.

King Rumbletum was a very well padded,  Will Murray, while Queen Gigglebelly, played by Kate Featherstone  certainly lived up to her name by constantly giggling. 

Suran Jayathilaka was obviously really enjoying playing Olga Pong, the baddie and he made an excellent job of it.  The facial expressions and interaction with the audience meant there was a good balance of comedy and evil.  Although we all laughed as well as booing we were never in any doubt that this was the baddie. Olga’s idiot of a son, Gormless, was well played by Sam Lake who lumbered around the stage showing us just how stupid the character was.  Very well done.

The Dame is of course one of the most traditional characters in a panto so well done to Matthew Fyleman who kept us all laughing as Nurse Pinchme. Chloe Mosby and Reuben Cowell as Princess Beauty and Prince Handsome played their roles well.  Unfortunately they did seem to struggle with the pre-recorded music and their singing sounded off key at times which was a shame. This probably wasn’t helped by the fact that the hand mics failed to liven up on time when it came to their duet, which could have been off putting.  Apart from that I think they did very well, as did Dom Rodwell as Squint, the Prince’s valet.

The whole cast looked as though they were really enjoying themselves.  Andy McMillan may not have had to speak as Cuddles, the panda who was brought to life, but his facial expressions said it all, so well done to him.  There were some memorable moments in this production.  The large birthday cake out of which jumped Olga Pong was very well done as was the seaside scene with Punch and Judy and the poisonous ice-cream.  There were of course many others, including the masked ball. Oddjob was well played by John Oglesby, keeping the thread of the story going with humour. 

Scenery and costumes were good and there was a good choice of songs with some lovely chorus numbers.  It was good to see youngsters in the chorus, singing and dancing so enthusiastically.   

Congratulations to everyone involved in this production.  There may have been one or two things that didn’t go quite according to plan on the evening I attended but this is pantomime where the most important thing is to keep the audience laughing and I think it did just that.

Thank you for inviting me.  We certainly had a good time.

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