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The Little Mermaid

Author: Vicki Avery

Information

Date
21st June 2019
Society
Digswell Players
Venue
Digswell Village Hall
Type of Production
Musical
Director
Ella Lounds and Lucy Portalska
Choreographer
Connie Marshall and Laura Nicholson

What a wonderful production by this talented group of young people.  It’s not easy to transport an audience under the sea, but you did just that – taking us to a wonderful, colourful and fishy underwater domain.  Directors, Ella Lounds and Lucy Portalska, had clearly worked these young people very hard to pull off such a lovely performance.   

The production was well cast, with a beautiful and engaging performance by Scarlett Christian Cox in the title role – it is very difficult to recreate a character that most people have only ever seen in animation, but Scarlett perfectly captured the naïve energy of Ariel. Well done.

Meredith Wynne made a believable Prince Eric and with more experience, will make a competent Principal Boy in the future.  

McKenna Hunter as Flounder, gave a most energetic and entertaining performance and Imogen Carnegie as Sebastian, played the over anxious crustacean very well. Both had excellent stage presents and voice projection was good.

Chloe Palmer gave us some great characterization as Scuttle, a well thought out performance, but don’t be afraid to project your voice some more. You have a voice to use…so use it!!

Flotsam (Jacob Colligan) and Jetsam (Lawrence Carnegie) performed well as the evil minions of the very wicked Ursula. Perhaps a little more accentuation on the “S” sounds could have made them even creepier but I like the fact that they slithered into view before you even realised that they were there. Nice piece of directing. Well done.

Nikita Setty gave a regal performance as the sea queen Ursula without being over dramatic and we were left in no doubt that she really was a nasty piece of work but perhaps heavier character make -up would have added to the impact in comparison to Ariel who was very natural. 

Good performances were gained from Marnus Preis as Grimsby, David Burnside as King Triton.

Brook Davis was an entertaining Chef Louis. A comic in the making I believe. 

All the cast were enjoying themselves and gave confident portrayals of some tricky characters.  Well done to the Mersisters, Gulls, Sailors, Chefs and Sea Creatures – you were all a credit to Digswell Expressions.

The choreography was perfect for this production when most of the numbers are ‘swum’ rather than danced.  I really enjoyed the Mersisters routine for ‘She’s in Love’ – they did incredibly well working in synchronisation.  Choreographers, Connie Marshall and Laura Nicholson used a lot of imagination to create the great movement around the stage.

The costumes were brilliant – you were left in no doubt who the characters were, but the young people could move around easily.  The head pieces and accessories were of particular note and the whole stage lit up with coral reef colour when the company were performing.

The scenery and props, particularly the huge ship, were super, with the production having good lighting throughout.  The sound from the music track was a little on the loud side at times and some of the cast found it a struggle to project over the top but considering they were not wearing microphones they did very well. 

Well done to the stage crew who ensured swift changing of the many scenes – you all worked very hard to keep it running so smoothly.

Huge congratulations to everyone involved and thank you for looking after me so well.

Have a great last night.

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