Sleeping Beauty

Alan Frayne’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’ w as the perfect antidote to a dark, cold and wet winters evening and the FMTC production hit all the right notes ... literally. The full house notices attested the popularity of this company’s annual pantomime and the enthusiastic audience participation should have pleased the cast and the production team.

After a thankfully brief overture there was a good prologue to the fairy tale from lovely Good Fairy Lilac and scary Bad Witch Hazel and this was followed by a very colourful opening scene. The scenery from ‘Scenery Hire Ltd Newport’ was very good throughout; the many cloths had excellent perspective and interesting scenes that fully complemented the story. The costumes from ‘Ace Tredegar’ were outstanding once again and worn well by the whole cast... colourful, clean and worthy of note. Lighting and sound were as usual very good as were the props and special effects. 

The story of Sleeping Beauty is really quite beautiful and the vision of the director Joanne Plenty was grand...  a piece of musical theatre and a beautiful spectacle, but without losing the slickness, fun and comedy elements of a pantomime. The pace was tremendous with songs and dance routines short and crisp and well performed. Well rehearsed and sharp cue pickups and smart comedy came from Muddles and Nurse Dottie Dettol and I give special praise for the quick fire (addresses) comedy routine from Fetch and Carry. The dancing was excellent with almost the whole company joining in at times, with interesting choreography and movement to suit cast talents from choreographer Sarah Plenty.

The chosen songs suited this pantomime subject very well. I am not a fan of modern pop songs sung by a company (often hard to sing and come over poorly) but all the music was good. I very much liked the two songs from ‘Matilda the musical’... entertaining and well performed. The small band controlled capably by MD David Hynds, improved as the evening continued, although there were some sounds from the brass player that I don’t think were written in the score!

This was a true company pantomime with every performer whether chorus or principal demonstrating talent and giving their best. The evening fairly sped by and all the audience gave the cast a well earned rousing reception as they performed the ‘walk down’.

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