Sleeping Beauty

The resourcefulness of amateur theatre companies never ceases to amaze and never more so than Dudley Little Theatre’s simple but very effective innovative approaches to the limited facilities available at St Peter’s Church Hall.

That said, it still only works if you deliver the right product and Tony Stamp’s production of Dudley Little Theatre’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’ certainly hit that spot. From the point that we meet the villain of the piece, James Silvers’ excellent panto baddie, Magnificent by name and by performance, whose dramatic entrance excellently executed each time via the main tabs, ably facilitated by his henchman accomplices, Dumb and Dumber (open and closing the curtains in view and covered by dialogue, played by Katy Pearson and Louise Reed, whose performances grew in confidence with the predictable audience booing!

An excellent script by Joshua and Lewis Clarke was pitched perfectly to keep both adults and children thoroughly entertained throughout, especially in the competent hands of Jack Fern’s Nurse and his stupid and highly comic son, Ellis Daker as Tommy. Jack played the audience superbly, with just the right innuendo and comedy – my favourite line of the night was as Nursie exhorts the audience to show their contempt for Magnificent – “Show us your boo’s” she shouts, the audience responds according, but one unsuspecting audience member is admonished with, “No, madam, your boo’s!”.

The small cast and tight storyline relied more on situation and dialogue rather than large musical numbers and traditional set pieces and this ideally suited both the company and the location as well as breaking a few rules.  Lucy Jaye’s ‘Aurora’, the sleeping beauty of the title, was a feisty partner to Alex Hill’s more traditional, Prince Orlando, giving us a different Principal Boy/Girl dynamic and worked really well. Some great comedy interludes between Aurora and her confidante, Bella, played with black country charm by Gina Lovell, showed a refreshing new side to the Panto Princess.

Maurice Felton and Sharon Hopkins as the dotty King and Queen made the most of their brief appearances, Jackie Salter’s ‘Fairy’, Magnificent’s nemesis, was suitably ditzy and utterly engaging and along with Dumb and Dumber, moved the fast-paced production along to its traditional happy ending.

Some clever staging allowed the minimal set to be used to its full effect, imaginative use of auditorium entrances enabling some great ad lib banter but extra special mention should go to Musical Director, Ray Curran, not only offering suitable atmospheric background accompaniment to the various settings and scenarios but also the addition of some great original music and lyrics that fitted the plot superbly.

A great night out and looking forward to DLT’s next production, Patrick Hamilton’s ‘Gaslight’ in March 2024.

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.