Sleeping Beauty

This was a great family pantomime. The cast ranged in ages and complimented each other nicely.  As is often the way, the ladies outnumbered the men but it worked well.

I was impressed with the efforts made to change the words of most of the songs to fit the storyline and it did work in the majority of cases but in others, it didn’t seem necessary. Choosing a difficult song meant that Billy took the opportunity to bring out his mobile phone in order to be able to sing along which gave it a modern touch.

I couldn’t believe that Billy played by Brandon Cotterell was only 13, he is destined for greater things. He was so enthusiastic and soon had the audience on his side. His interaction with Queen Dorothy (David Francis) was good and the dialogue flowed swiftly, especially in the comedy sections. David also had a lot of audience participation and came amongst us to interact more closely.

Jim Smith was the strict King Norbert whose command of the stage and cast came naturally.  Kitty was played by Michelle Wood and her lack of speech was certainly made up for by her visual expressions, which were very funny.

The seven fairies were delightful, but Fairy Peaceful played by Eloise King had a lovely presence and beautiful voice and generally sparkled throughout.

Princess Aurora (Abigail Hollinghurst) and Prince Orlando (Lexi Harris) were nicely paired and came over well as the love interest. Their duet was lovely.

The pairing of Rebecca Darch as Carabosse and Dilys Hollinghurst as Spindlehanks was perfect and they stole the show with their antics. Rebecca was in the most amazing costume and her presence was felt as soon as she appeared on stage, ably supported by Dilys as the rambunctious cat. The pre interval scene was brilliant and the song ‘Caught in a Prickly Hedge’ to the music of Bad Romance was, by far, the highlight of the show. Although I found it hard not to join in with Oom Pah Pah, which had plenty of life too.

The chorus were well used and came on in many guises, I particularly enjoyed the lambs, and gave a great performance too.

The vibrant costumes and the colourful set complimented this production and made it a really enjoyable evening. Thank you very much Kington Operatic.

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