The Pied Piper

A invitation from Wilburton Theatre Group to visit in my capacity as their NODA Rep always ensures a warm welcome matched only by the air of anticipation from a loyal and extremely supportive audience.  For their 2018 panto they chose to perform Stephen Duckham’s adaptation of the classic story “The Pied Piper of Hamelin”.  As we all know, the city of Hamelin is overrun with rats (of course) and the plot has the basic elements of the story  but, naturally, panto takes over. 

The rats’ Master, the Rodent Lord is waiting to take over the area and already has the Burgomaster under his thumb. Frieda von Froth and her somewhat dim-witted son, Willy run the local beer garden and have had enough of the rats devouring everything they find.  Lorelei the good White Witch of the mountain, calls in the mystical Pied Piper; who says he can rid Hamelin of the rats by playing a special tune on his pipe for a fee of 1,000 guilders. Karl, the town’s book keeper, and Liesl, the Burgomaster’s daughter try to persuade the Burgomaster to agree. The Piper keeps his promise but the Burgomaster fails to pay him.   In Frieda’s Inn, Willy has to constantly fight off the amorous advances of Gretchen, the waitress. The Piper makes all the children follow him into the Koppelberg Mountain until Karl persuades the Piper to return the children and the Burgomaster honours the agreement. 

The cast of twenty-six was predominantly female with only five male performers overall and only two in principal roles; Dominic Bright as the energetic and very likeable Dame Frieda Von Froth and the young and talented Aidan Meikle as Carrots the crippled boy.  But hey, it's panto - so it doesn’t matter.    What did matter was the fine performances we enjoyed especially from a vivacious Madison Campbell as the White Witch (and who is on my “one’s to watch list) and Abigail Nation as The Pied Piper.  These two young actresses did an excellent job, undoubtedly holding their own in the company of those older and more experienced, such as Alyssia Radford who was very good as the Burgomaster, and Katie Lewis who did a fine job as Karl.  

Hannah Grainger was good as Willy who had his work cut out coping with Gretchen, his intended, played by the excellent Gemma Pollitt.  These two worked really well together and they were all very well supported by young Millie Sutcliffe who did well as Lisle.  The Rodent Lord’s dialogue was used as voice-over until the Wizard of Oz type of denouement when young Caitlin Fleming briefly entered the fray as TRL in person.

The very busy Chorus of villagers, children, rats (and a Troll) were great.  The singing was of a good standard throughout and the dance routines choreographed by Samantha Gallop assisted by Lucas Gallop were all well executed.  I particularly liked Country Roads which was an amusing mash-up of Tyrollean/Western.  

Musical Director Tim Brown on the keyboard always seems to enjoy the show as much as the audience which is great.  On the debit side, I did think the choice of darkly classical FOH music was a bit dreary for a pantomime and we listened to a lot of it especially before the start of the second half when the audience sat in the dark for some minutes listening to it.  Less is more in a lot of cases and in my personal opinion any more than thirty to forty-five seconds of intro music (of any type) before the start of the action or even between scenes is enough.

On the production side, clever sets and backcloths, colourful costumes and good lighting and sound enhanced that side even though there were a couple of technical blips - and these things happen even in professional shows. 

I don’t think I have ever been to a Wilburton panto without going home felling well entertained and this year was no exception.  The atmosphere is always great, your audience is always ready to join in the fun and everyone goes home smiling.  Well done Director Tim Meikle and everyone involved with The Pied Piper.

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