Sleeping Beauty

This started out as a fairly conventional retelling of the well-loved story of “Sleeping Beauty”; the first act opened with the Princess’s christening and closed with an unfortunate accident involving a spinning wheel, with plenty of character exposition in between.  The second act was altogether more adventurous; instead of simply allowing time to pass before the Princess is kissed by a handsome Prince and everyone lives happily ever after, this production had the Princess revived by the true love of her friends and family, while a clever plot twist involving a curse on the Prince obliged the company to work together to ensure a happy ending and wedding walk down.  If the piece was perhaps a fraction too long at 2 hours 40 minutes, this reimagining not only made the story more relevant and contemporary, it also sustained interest with a better balance between the two acts.

The ensemble work was generally strong, although the villagers looked a little nonplussed when they joined the sleeping Princess in The Dark Tower, and they occasionally ran out of steam in the market place.  The Fairy Squad were able to present some individual characteristics and had notably good reactions to developments in the plot – something that was especially true of the younger members of the squad.  The dance team were given a few moments in which to shine, including a well-executed tap dance routine, and the whole company dance numbers, energetic and appropriately differentiated, were amongst the highlights of the show.

Some of the comic detailing was particularly impressive.  I liked the villagers’ protest placards – “Great savings at DFS” sticks in my mind - and I noticed that the market stall selling fans but nothing else was trading as “OnlyFans” in a completely throwaway visual gag.  There were plenty of groan-out-loud jokes about infant footballers being good at dribbling and suchlike, and enough local references for any self-respecting community pantomime; I enjoyed the back-handed compliment paid to the pupils at The Warriner School for their ability to organise a protest.  There were some topical and political jokes too: Liz Truss’s tenure of office was an easy target, and although I can’t recall the exact details of Carabosse’s Brexit costume joke I do remember that it was cleverly constructed.

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.