The Pied Piper of Hamelin

It was a pleasure to stand in for Charlotte Gouldsmith-Leigh to review Riverside Players’ production of The Pied Piper of Hamelin. It is always nice to venture out of my normal NODA patch to visit other societies and my trip to Old Windsor saw the first of this season’s pantomimes for me. Thank you to director Simon for welcoming me and for telling me a bit about the society and the production.

This was a new version of The Pied Piper of Hamelin adapted by Limelight Scripts with an array of different characters and, instead of the evil protagonist being King Rat, it was a ‘friend’ of his, Gisela an ex-witch. The traditional tale, of the town of Hamelin being infested by a plague of rats which are lured away by the Pied Piper remained the same, but in this version, it was Gisela who stole the Piper’s wage and encouraged him to get his revenge by kidnapping the village Children. Luckily in 'panto land’, there is always a happy ending and Dame Stella Strudal, her sons, the Burgermeister and his daughter were on hand to rescue the children and thwart Gisela and her sidekicks Frank and Furter.

This was an enjoyable pantomime, full of original corny jokes and audience interaction, a messy scene which led to those of us on the front few rows getting a little wet and the fool getting a pie in his face. There were many exuberant and funny performances as you would expect in a pantomime and a lot of fun was had by both the cast and audience. The show had been well cast with some strong performances from the principals and the ensemble. Pantomimes often have very large casts, but this one with just 14 performers gave everyone the chance to shine and epitomised what village pantomimes should be about. It had lots of laughs, plenty of fun and energetic performances for the audience to enjoy, all supported by good tech and an efficient backstage team.

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