Sleeping Beauty A Pantomime

This is another home written panto by Wellworth Players stalwart Karen Bays and the first thing to say is she certainly knows how to put pen to paper, producing a very witty script, with lots of excellent quips and plenty of obligatory corny ones as well, which kept us laughing and groaning from beginning to end. To everybody’s amusement the cast then managed to be on top of breaking news and slip in a couple of additional quips at the last moment regarding princes being arrested. This excellent script was then in the hands of Director Phil Bailey and Assistant Director Abi Pettitt.

The plot was almost traditional with Princess Aurora being condemned to die by the wicked Carabosse by being pricked by a spinning wheel on her eighteenth birthday only to be deferred by the good Fairy Snow to sleeping for hundred years and then, spoiler alert, falling for a certain time travelling Lord.

The scenery, constructed by an army of twenty-two under the supervision of Stage manager, Boggle, was almost the star of the show, with some incredibly detailed artwork by Anne Bannell giving us Castle Walls and Turrets, Wild woods and internal palace scenes. The outstanding scene however has to belong to the animated outer space scene done in compete blackout with various UV illuminated celestial objects flying around including planets, shooting stars and a Tardis, all built by Harri Bruce. Extremely well done.

Lighting by Darren Seekings and Graham Emmett complemented the amazing scenery very well indeed and couldn’t be faulted.

Costumes, by Karen Bays and Marie Quick were of course standardly outrageous for the dame, Nanny Meg, five in total if I remember correctly, one of which with red and white polka dot seemed to be channelling her inner Mini Mouse. Particularly well-chosen were the coordinating yellow and purple dungarees and shirts for the village idiots, Nit and Wit comedically offset with lopsidedly worn baseball caps emblazoned with their names; and an evil looking black and green witches outfit complete with pointed hat for Carabosse. All balanced with some well thought out and applied makeup (uncredited), again particularly for the dame with a special mention to the way she applied lipstick to comedically distort her lips.  Superb!

Music was under the Direction of Roger Billington. We started with a very clever musically opening number, ‘Welcome to the Magic,’ created by Assistant MD Cyril Hodgson, which comedically describes all elements of a pantomime. Pure genius! We then had a series of well-chosen pop songs dotted throughout including I’ve Got A feeling, Sweet Child of Mine, The One and Only, Dream a Little Dream and Dancing on The Ceiling to name but a few.

The acting was equally great fun, from the comedically name Chamberlain Potty (Simon West) and Mrs Potty (Ann Lister) accompanied by the Herald (Marie Quick), to a very engaging Billie (Bec Wilderspin). Our two village idiots Nit and Wit (Francesca Hackett and Neal Dench) were a great comic, high energy duo with silly voices to add to the amusement, and Chris Thompson was a class act as Nanny Meg and was clearly born to play a dame with his great comic timing. Always worth a watch!

Mark Hebert and Julie Gill as King Hubert and Queen Henrietta gave us an excellent upright regal pair, and Karen Bays was the very loud, larger than life Carabosse with a very evil laugh indeed. Geoff Durrant in a tutu as the elderly Fairy Snow was brilliantly cast providing a great comedic contrast with the three youngsters, Eliza and Matilda Spink and Ariah Donovan cast as the additional Faries.

Lizzie Cook, who has a super singing voice was our demure Princess Aurora and well matched to Jago Pearson as the time travelling doctor.  Well done also to the hard working Tree Monsters, Guards and Messengers Jamie Medlicott, Gordon Russell, Anshveer Singh and Archie Wilderspin and to Mary Chapman who played a Villager.

It was opening night, so some nerves were on show and quite a few prompts were taken, and this did slow the pace at times, but overall, this was a thoroughly well worked piece of entertainment.

So, well done to writer Karen Bays and Director Phil Bailey, who told me he wanted everybody to leave with a big smile, which we most certainly did. This was a thoroughly enjoyable production, much appreciated by an enthusiastic audience. 

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