Spotlight on Musicals

Spotlight on Musicals

Ellesmere Port Musical Theatre Company

18th February 2022

The Gladstone Theatre was the venue for what was to be a wonderful evening’s entertainment from Ellesmere Port Musical Theatre Company. Storm Eunice was raging outside as we were treated to a magical evening of musical theatre: Spotlight on Musicals. It was lovely to see a full house for this very popular and well supported society; EPMTC’s return to the stage post pandemic, it is great to see them back.

With a compliment of over thirty extremely talented players, six of which are juniors, we were treated to a menu of incredible songs from our favourite musicals.

They say the tone for the whole show is set by the opening number; Magic to Do from Pippin blew us away.  From the offset it says loud and clear that this is a show that means business. What a wonderful welcome back to live performance.

The choice of songs performed was not necessarily the most well-known, which I thought was inspirational, congratulations to the Musical Director Liz Ledgerton, Choreographers Gill Watson & Emma Humphries.  We were treated to over thirty songs, skilfully executed, and beautifully delivered by enthusiastic happy young people.  Praise must go to the costumiers, Pam Watson, Liz Ledgerton, Gail Roberts & Mary Cooper for the excellent attention to detail of the era and themes for the songs chosen. Extremely well done, amazing costumes. There is such young talent in this society, everyone on that stage enjoyed the experience and it showed.

The shows : Pippin, Avenue Q, Newsies,Chicago, The Sound of Music, Little Shop of Horrors, Anything Goes, Carousel, Mulan, Hamilton, Shrek, MammaMia, Hairspray, Boogie Nights, Beetlejuice, School of Rock, West Side Story, Waitress, Mame, Dreamgirls, American idiot, Honk, Whistle Down the Wind, Six, Jersey Boys and Sister Act. Congratulations also to the unsung heroes of lighting and sound, Derek Bosely for an excellent job.

It is impossible to identify an individual performance with a show like this; the quality and variety of the songs they covered both well-established show favourites and the new breed of musical was exceptional.  You’ll Never Walk Alone from Carousel always a favourite especially in Merseyside, What Did I Miss from Hamilton, Six from Six and a special favourite of mine Bosom Buddies from Mame. To conclude I have to congratulate the Jersey Boys medley, what a triumph this is, well done guys.

Thank you EPMTC for a truly exceptional evening, I felt I could have been sitting in a theatre in the West End. With the young talent in the society you have a very exciting future .I look forward to next time.

Joanne Rymer

NODA

District 4.

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