Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping Beauty is one of our best loved fairy tales.  I’ve seen many versions of it over the years but this one had a refreshing change right at the beginning as soon after the appearance of the Good Fairy, Fairy Sunbeam (Kirsti Bennett-Koster), her troupe of fairies appeared as part of the chorus, all looking and behaving in a delightful fairylike manner.  Of course, evil was not far behind in the personification of Fairy Nettle (Emma Pierssene) obviously not now part of the troupe because of her evil ways.  Sunbeam and Nettle both took the action so well throughout the piece.

The rest of the characters told the story well with King Ebb (Robbie Laing) and Queen Flo (Sue Beck) being thrilled at the birth of their baby daughter. Also delightful were the young King Ebb and Queen Flo (Becks Heard and Mark Canelle). Nobody really  believed that Fairy Nettle’s prophecy would come true when Aurora turned 16 and all was sweetness and light.  No panto would be complete without a Dame and Andy Bennett gave us his Dame Ammonia Goodbody in great style and Tickles the Court Jester was played by Alicia Jay with a lot of jollity.  I believe Fusspot was the Chancellor and was played true to the character’s name by Ian Bratley.

Princess Aurora has now grown up and of course she meets Prince Valiant – Zara Belcher and Murray Laing were a lovely pairing both with very good voices and we were assured of a happy ending after the 100 years sleep.  I really loved the front cover of the programme with the Prince looking askance at the Dame as though he’d never seen such a sight before which I guess he hadn’t!  Amy Baker did the Dame’s makeup and she is to be congratulated for that!

The chorus who weren’t part of the fairy troupe added a lot to the proceedings and all, whether principal or chorus, were in good voice.  There were one or two prompts but they were well taken up from your very professional prompt, Liz Lash.

The scenery was ideal, together with sound and lighting design and wardrobe. Charisse and Mo Munday carried out the choreography and all moved very well on stage because of their expertise.  All those backstage worked well – so many jobs to do.

Thank you, Charisse for writing this panto and also for directing and well done to all those either on stage or hidden behind the scenes.

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