Summer Showcase

Riverside’s Summer Showcase was put together by director Alex to give opportunities to many of their members to have the chance to shine. Hosted by glamourous drag artist Phoeby LaReine we were treated to solos, group and company numbers as well as a couple of short comedy sketches written by Alex.

There was no specialist stage lighting or costumes so the evening relied totally on the talent of the participants.

The opening was a rousing rendition of the “Merry Old Land of OZ” a throwback to their May show and a bright and confident start to the evening followed by Phoeby LaReine wowing with her performance of “One Night Only”.  Pheobe did a super job of helping the evening to flow and had a lovely rapport with the audience.

The rest of the programme had a good mix of different music genre and included two members displaying their skills as musicians, Alfie Newton with his guitar playing, including a piece he had written himself, and Suzy Wake with her clarinet solo. The short sketches "The Ornithology Department" and "The Door" added a touch of fun as did Alfie doing table “magic” before the show and at the interval,  

Everyone involved did their very best and the audience rewarded them with lots of applause and cheers.There were a few performances that stood out for me; Isla’s rendition or “Maybe” was confident and showed good skill at acting through her song; Nick Thompson’s “Music of the Night” was well sung and an audience favourite; “When I Grow Up” by Pheobe Galer was excellent, a confident and well sung performance and “Dear Bill” by Jess Gibson was poignant and her diction and delivery were perfect.

The full company gave us “You Make My Dreams Come True” as a taster for their next panto “Snow White” and the finale was the joyful “Shine” which several of the younger members interpreted with BSL.

Thank you for the invitation to share your evening and I look forward to seeing you all in December at your panto,

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