Sleeping Beauty

Arriving in the foyer of the Berry Theatre, we were met by a real happy hubbub as we walked through the doors, and were warmly greeted by their Chair, Barbara Fairclough. PAC Arts, based in Hedge End in Southampton are now in their thirty first year of providing the local area with first class musicals, concerts and their annual pantomime.

It's great to see such familiar faces time after time, a testament to PAC that the performers love it so. 

The set was laid out simply and efficiently with the usual panto village scene and back drops with a very colourful cast on stage, ages from five to fourty plus. The choreography by Fay Anteney was of a very high quality, designed to get the best out of the performers whilst keeping it simple enough that it could be learned and rehearsed well so we as an audience were taken with its quality.

The costume team led by Louise Kent and Faye Anteney must have worked long and tirelessly to produce wonderful, colouful and effective (and so many) costumes, they really added to the overall feeling of happiness and smiles. 

The set changes, including one huge castle truck, were, like the choreography, seemingly well rehearsed and down time was kept to an absolute minimum. David Pointer and his crew kept the show flowing really well. The sound (Ben Lucas, Darren Harley and Toby Hall) was good, there seemed to be no drop out of words from the stage and the cast could be heard well. The staging was enhanced by some very good lighting effects (Matt Duggan) and all seemed to progress well here, no technical glitches of any significance were noted.

The principals and the cast have obviously been rehearsed well by Directors Mark Lock and Matt Lock and all members looked as if they knew where to be, why they were there and what they needed to do. The principal line was very well led by Emily-Rose Mould as the Dame, Nurse Hettie Harpic, and very admirably backed up by Lewis Wise and Lewis Philpot as Fetch and Carrie, the village idiots, with Page Ottway and Adam Harding as the King and Queen and Owen Hawes as the happy go lucky Muddles.

This was a full on show, so one could be forgiven for the slight error here and there but none were evident. All the cast were here to enjoy themselves, and that they did. This really came over to the audience, who in turn were thoroughly entertained. This was local pantomime at a very high level.

Congratulations PAC, this was a very, very good Panto and we had a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Here's to next year!

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