Star Warz - The Farce Awakens

Catworth probably have the smallest stage of any venue we visit and a neat little intimate village hall. So, the first pleasure of a visit to Catworth is I’m unlikely to be blasted with dialogue via face mics, and they have actors who actually know how to project to the back of their auditorium. A rarity today! Secondly, they are very much into home grown scripts and have a couple of talented people well versed in that discipline. On this occasion Scott Millington was the man in charge of both writing and directing this, what shall I call it, half spoof, half pantomime based on a certain global film franchise set in a different galaxy. And what an extremely sharp script it was too. Some wonderful quips, lots of local based mick taking, and even some on NODA itself (How dare they!!), lots of puns, especially based on the names of well know supermarket chains, and even some taking the mick out of its own script, such as ‘I’m here thanks to a great big hole in the plot?’ Very funny and the audience loved it! And the parody of the original characters was particularly well thought out and cast accordingly.

The plot centres around ‘Martha Raider’ the daughter of Lord Raider who has just graduated from the Smith Lord Academy and is tasked by the evil Empress to track down the remaining rebels as they try to stop her building her new space weapon, The ALDI.  As I said, lots of supermarket jokes!! Unfortunately, Obi Wan Toni advertises his 60th birthday on intergalactic social media and inadvertently gives away their hideout.

Under the stage management of Anne Allured, constructed by Stephen Cawdell and Malcolm Allured the set on this tiny stage was a full-sized mural on the back wall of the cockpit on a starship looking out into space and the countless stars of a far away galaxy! Extremely well painted by Stephen Cawdell and Ken Payne.  To each side were black painted flats. To simulate the rebels hideout the back wall was covered over with a sacking cloth and various items such as a Happy Birthday sign. And best of all, above and behind the back wall we had two miniature LED lit space craft duelling with each other, as they periodically very slowly crossed the stage. Hilarious!

Lights and other technical jobs were in the very capable hands of Steve Kaye, Vlad Sljapic, Jim Daniel, Jules Chaney and Paul Murphy. I believe the director in his end of show speech said the sound and all the pre-recorded music was all managed by 12 year old Clara Chaney. Great job and I look forward to seeing more of your work in the future!

Costumes by Cathy Goodyer, Jenny Pawling, Louise Williams, Belinda Moore, Nikki Dereck, Jules Chancy and Clara Chaney were pretty good parodies of their film counterparts. A special mention of Jaffa the Orange bright orange costume complete with orange sun visor and sunglasses, which had the audience in stitches. And Noda’s costume which was absolutely superb left you in no doubt who wore the original. And the same could be said of 3CPO’s outfit. Brilliant job ladies! Liz Murphy also did a great job on sourcing and/or making the properties. Particularly liked the ALDI!

And running on from that last paragraph, the makeup and hair department which consisted of Jules Chaney, Iuliia Filko and Katya Palchykova, were on top form with all the actors, but again special mention of Noda’s makeup, which ever one of you did that, please take a bow.

Our actors on the dark side, were Vicky Ivell as the young Martha Raider dressed in black leather with a very upbeat enthusiastic performance, Chris Chaney as Lord Raider, complete with obligatory lightsabre and always entering from the rear of the hall, eliciting the obligatory boos as he swept down the isle and passed the audience.  He certainly made the most of that! Jayne Kaye as a very stern Empress Ovaltine, Vlad Sljapic as a larger-than-life Jaffa the orange, who also turned out to be a pretty good guitarist and singer, Lili Sljapic as his sidekick, with the wonderful name of Tan Gerine, and Joy Grindle as the glamorous Captain of the Imperial Starship.

 On the rebels side we had: Pippa Ellson as their thoughtful leader Nando Peri, Steve Kaye as Obi Wan Toni, played very much tongue in cheek, but also a man well acquainted with an acoustic guitar and who could hold a tune, and Rachael McCreath as Princess Freya, who complete with her hair buns and all white outfit and the way she played the part, was a pretty close resemblance  to her original counterpart. Alistair Outram as Dan Polo, dressed as and played as a definite parody of a certain actor also renowned for searching out lost Arcs, and Masha Bashuk as his sidekick Wookiechew, whose groan/moan noise and eye rolling was superb and raised a laugh almost every time she made it. Julie Daniel as Bimbo Fett, who’s amazingly fetching outfit and especially the wide-brimmed hat were based somewhere in the English Civil War period of history, brought a bit of extra glamour to the party. Paul Goodyer as Noda was probably my standout character, as well as the amazing costume and makeup, his gait with the crooked walking stick, his mumbling manner of dismissal of all around him and his entrances and exits were absolutely hilarious. Not far behind him was Ken Payne as 3CPO, who absolutely nailed the walk and the arm movements. And whoever thought of using a countertop size waste bin with a round top as a mini R2D2 takes my top prize for casting. – Brilliant!

So, all in all a very entertaining homegrown panto played to a surprisingly small, but appreciative audience for an opening night. It could have done with a bit of pace being injected at times (you cannot go over the top in a panto) and less aimless wandering around the stage when delivering lines, but some great characterisation and imagination by all the creative cast and crew involved. Keep up the good work of writing and performing scripts like that and who knows, CATS may even be forgiven for daring to make fun of visiting reps who ‘spend their time writing pantomime reviews.’ Or as (Y)Noda might have said ‘Offended I am not!’  

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