The Hunchback of Notre Dame

I had not seen the original Disney Film nor any performance of this musical before so I was very interested to see this production. It was much darker than I had expected given that it had been made into a Disney cartoon film. The performance was unrelentingly emotional and had very little in the way of light relief. Personally, I think that was a missed opportunity although I understand that the story is thought provoking and highly charged,

The Principals were all excellent performers, Ewan Dunlop played Quasimodo, the Hunchback. This was a difficult part to play and he did it extremely well. He has exceptional vocals and delivered all his songs with great strength and passion. I did find the on-stage transformation a little underwhelming and, it seemed, at the time, to have been unnecessary. I realised at the end of the show, when he transformed back, why it was done. However I think that his appearance was not as horrifying as the dialogue implied and that was a shame. His characterisation and the way he contorted his body however, was very good.

Lee Brown played Dom Claud Frollo very well, another difficult part to play but Lee pitched it just right. His vocals were strong and he dominated the stage when he appeared, as the character required. Maddy Lahna played the  gypsy Esmeralda beautifully. Lee Keremezo (Phoebus De Martin) produced a good performance, with more excellent vocals. Joey Whitby (Clopin Trouillfou) brought the character to life with great style and panache.

The running theme through the show was the excellence of the vocals from everyone. Director Bradley Green chose Allegro, to be the additional choir, to support the singing. I wasn’t sure how much impact they had on the production until they sang the Entracte and Agnus Dei at the beginning of the second half. Then we were able to appreciate the talent of the choir to their full extent.

The ensemble were outstanding, playing different parts and changing both costumes and scenery on stage with minimum fuss and to good effect. The company has a significant number of professionally trained performers in the cast and this showed in the very high standard of singing and performance from everyone.

Scenery and Costumes were professionally supplied and very effective for the production, I particularly liked the Gargoyle head dresses. Lighting was well designed and enhanced the performances on stage.  Sound was good although there were several instances when the mics were not turned up on time and we missed the first line of dialogue or song. This is a bit of an issue for me as I think the performers deserve to be properly backed up by the technicians. Hopefully this was resolved durig the rest of the run.

Overall a very emotional and highly charged performance.

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