Sleeping Beauty

This was my first time seeing Coleshill on Stage, a planned visit to see the musical Little Shop of Horrors having fallen through when the show was cruelly cancelled at the last minute when RAAC was discovered in the venue.  But the Society have bounced back from what must have been a great disappointment (and financial nightmare) to stage their annual panto in the welcoming, high-ceilinged space of Coleshill Town Hall (mercifully free of RAAC!)

And so we headed off to the village of Muddleby-on-Marsh, where the suitably regal King Cactus (John Kerr) and Queen Marigold (Angela Ivis-Peach) showed off their newly born daughter, Princess Rose, with an amusing disregard for the baby’s safety!  Also on the scene was Muddles (Jodie Butler), who formed a good rapport with the audience as she took us through the story, reeling off a stream of corny panto jokes and gamely taking a fall and getting whacked on the bottom for comic effect!

Charged with looking after the Princess’s safety was Dame Hettie Harpic, confidently played by Rob Sharratt, who had great fun coming out into the auditorium to torment an unsuspecting audience ‘victim’.  Tom Willson and Dan Butler formed an amusing double act as the celtic-voiced Fetch and Carry, a couple of hapless courtiers sent off to deliver the invitations to Rose’s birthday party.  They had a funny and well-conceived Two Ronnies-style routine based around the locations of the invitees, and also a good running joke as they were established as the King’s PANTIES.  I can’t remember what the acronym stood for now, but it was a clever idea and enabled some funny lines about the King losing his panties, or them falling down!

Of course, no Sleeping Beauty would be complete without its fairies, both good and bad, and Coleshill did not stint us in this regard.  On the good side, Robyn Klein-Christoffels was a glamourous Good Fairy Lilac, delivering the traditional rhyming couplets well, although I was a bit bemused by the mobile phone she wore around her neck throughout.  She was well supported by Hope Goodyear as Fairy Red and Annabel Ward as Fairy Yellow.  On the dark side, Amy Reynolds was ferocious as Bad Witch Hazel – I don’t know about the youngsters in the audience, but I was certainly scared!  Her transformation at the end, complete with rainbow coloured outfit, was well done – and I liked that the character perhaps wasn’t wholly won over by the good side.

Sleeping Beauty is a fairly light show in terms of plot (even for a pantomime), and it’s interesting to see how different productions fill the time between her birth and falling asleep on her 16th birthday.  Coleshill have perhaps taken a bit of inspiration from Frozen by introducing an ‘in between’ version of Princess Rose, played Daisy-Lee Smith, who sang a charming version of ‘When I Grow Up’ from Matilda, and enjoyed a funny school-room scene with a tumbling Muddles and the rest of the gang.

It wasn’t until almost the end of the first half that we met Princess Rose herself, but it was worth the wait as Sophie Baker gave an assured performance as the curious young Princess, convincingly portraying the character’s frustration at her confinement and later her wide-eyed amazement as she experienced the wider world.  She enjoyed a nice scene with Prince Alexis (Molly Bennett), who she met and fell for, Cinderella-style, prior to her fateful encounter with a spinning wheel.  Molly later returned as Alexis’s descendant, Prince Alexander who, in a nice touch, became the one to free Rose from her long sleep. 

Supporting the principal cast were a committed Chorus of seven, who played various courtiers and villagers, as well as adding their voices and movement to the group numbers.  I noticed some very nice harmonies in those group songs, and the sometimes complex choreography (by Tina Williams) was also well-rehearsed and executed.  Well done to all of them! 

Director Tom Willson (doing double duty alongside his on-stage role) did a good job of keeping the action moving, making good use of the space and introducing plenty of local jokes, which is always fun to see at a panto.  Musical accompaniment was provided by musical director Andrew Smith on keyboards and Jak Batchelor on drums.  This was undoubtedly to a high standard, although the sound balance seemed not quite right on occasion, particularly during solo songs, meaning that the vocals were sometimes difficult to hear.  

This was a show that made a lot of use of projections throughout, to provide a variety of backdrops for the action.  I particularly liked the way that this was used to show the thorns growing up around the palace (and retreating again at a swing of the Prince’s sword), and to show the lyrics for the traditional audience singalong.  The downside of this approach was that the backdrops were also visibly projected onto the actors, which I found a bit distracting and meant that the costumes (which otherwise were very good) were sometimes not seen to best effect.  Nevertheless, I thought the lighting was well used to delineate the various locations of the story, and I also liked the colourful spotlights roaming the audience as we took our seats, which really set the stage for what was to come.

My thanks to the members of Coleshill on Stage for inviting me to their show, and for the very warm welcome that I received.  Congratulations to everyone on a show full of panto fun and energy – there was certainly no sleeping in the audience (beauties or otherwise!) 

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