The Beauty Sleeping

 

A Maulden Players pantomime is much more than just a play, its more an annual social event for the entire village. The atmosphere before it starts is electric and buzzing with anticipation and everybody it appears seems to know everybody else. For the entire time I have been reviewing this event all the shows have been home written and directed by one of their own, Tracy Canavan-Smith. Tracy however is away this year on an academic writing course, so they used a bought in script by playwright Peter Nuttall, which was then directed by Lindsay Vickors. It didn’t dampen any enthusiasm or audience reaction in any way, as we laughed our way through an adaptation of the script, which was tailored to lots of local references, making fun mostly at the expense of the surrounding villages, aka ‘Kingdoms.’

The stage at Maulden is quite small and, as my after-show tour revealed, with very limited wing space, so its quite remarkable how Maulden manage to do such well decorated and quite complicated sets. That is partly down to their fantastic scene painter of several decades, Marion Hynes, as her sets are something to behold. This year she was ably assisted by Zoe Barke and Ben Taylor. We were treated to two splendid interior sets, the living room of Fiddle’s House for the opening scene, and a superb castle interior, complete with very realistic stone walls for the royal scenes. As both locations were used continually throughout the fourteen scenes, the stage crew under the direction of Mark and Phil Allen was a hive of activity behind the curtains doing an extremely slick and probably thoroughly exhausting job.

The splendid props added to the general effect of the scenes and were supplied and made by Marion Hynes, Lindsay Vickors, Norma Henderson and Maxine Tocco. Our scenes were thus set.

Lighting perfectly operated by Mark Sheppard neatly complimented the set and sound by Nick Endacott was pitched very well indeed as no actors were directly mic’d and all the songs perfectly audible over Ron Chimes keyboard.

Sourced by Norma Henderson, Helen England, Alison Quinn, Maxine Tocco and Lindsay Vickors,  and continuing to use ones made by Angela Chimes, costumes were of course a rich array from the regal to the ridiculous, with some well-chosen numbers for the King’s and Queen’s robes, colourful matching outfits for Fiddle and Tinkle, a complimentary palette of pastels and purples for the chorus and the usual collection of outlandish numbers for our Dame, Mother Droopy.

Finally, add some splendid make up, especially for a very green Bad Witch, by, Natalie Chimes (Bad Witch), Lauren Chimes (Dame), Lindsay Vickors (Cat) and the cast themselves.

Music is a one man show at a Maulden pantomime and if you came into the show blindfolded you’d still immediately know where you were from the familiar sound of Ron Chimes’ keyboard and the opening number “Time is Tight” from Booker T and M.G.’s.  Always brings a smile to the face.

Choreography by Kelci Vickors and the cast themselves was wisely tailored to the size of the stage and cast numbers, so by necessity was mostly static but effective all the same.

The duet of Fiddle and Tinkle, played by Edward Frizzelle and Simon Jeffery was absolutely splendid in their comedic slapstick roles and their rapport with the audience was second to none. Amply demonstrated when we the audience were being taught to ‘Yodel’ and Fiddle had to concede we had done it so well the usual second go wasn’t actually necessary! Don’t think I’ve ever seen that happen before!

James Struthers was the Dame, Mother Droopy carrying this off with some aplomb and a booming voice, and as it turned out it was going to be his fiftieth birthday the next day so a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday by us all helped celebrate the occasion. Definitely the ‘Queen’ pin of the show!

Zep Tocco put a humorous slant on what was a very money-orientated King Jeff more interested in rescuing his money than his daughter from his vine encrusted castle. Meanwhile his wife Queen Bridget, played by Sarah Joy continually ticks him off with some wonderfully cutting comments about the difference between greed and good.

And then there was a tongue in cheek servant, referred to by the King as a ‘useless Goblin,’ called Plop, which has got to be one of my favourite ever names for a panto character. Possessed of fortune telling powers, he, in true happy ever after panto ending actually turns out to be a real prince. Deftly played by VI former Ella Wilshaw in her first Maulden panto, with a rather special rendition of Killer Queen, not an easy song to master and delivered with confidence. Loved the hilarious way the King accentuated his name. Perfect double entendre!

Our title role, Princess Beauty was very well played by Chloe Carpenter, also a VI former in her debut for the Players. Clearly the Players have tapped into a excellent new generation for future productions.

Our good fairy (or Witch) was Betty the Good Witch played by Lauren Chimes in a true upbeat panto  manner spending her time casting baby spells, in contrast to Natalie Chimes as the wonderfully Green, Hogben the Bad Witch, played in a superbly contrasting, not quite in control, downbeat manner, continually being criticised by her completely non-plussed, unimpressed cat, beautifully pitched by Ben Michaels, which made for some great comedic exchanges. Brilliant characterisations all round.

And now the star of the show and undoubtedly the future of the Chimes acting dynasty was little Max Chimes. Nowhere near approaching double figures in age, he was a very confident little Postman and Pilot as well as taking up his position in the front row for most of the song and dance numbers, where he knew all the words and never put a step out of time. Clearly destined for some sort of career on the stage. A class act in the making!! Watch this space!

Well done to the excellent well drilled chorus of Lisa Ashby, Helen England, Chloe Frizzelle, Halle George, Norma Henderson, Elaine Impey, Jasmine Stean and Pam Vickors. A great job.

So, congratulations to Director Lindsay Vickors, Producer Maxine Tocco and their team, I think you can confidently say your hard work pulled this one off and Maulden will very much be looking forward to reconvening this annual social event again next year. Not so sure about the surrounding ‘Kingdoms’ though.

 

NODA owns the intellectual Property Rights to the content of all show reports written by NODA Councillors, Reps and Assistant Reps.

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.