The Sound of Music

I don’t suppose there are many among us who haven’t seen some version of ‘The Sound of Music’ either the film with Julie Andrews or the more recent London stage run with Connie Fisher. I am sure, therefore, most people in the audience were sitting in anticipation of what was to come. We weren’t to be disappointed. 

This theatre has a large stage and as such, any scenery has to be large to fill the space but we went seamlessly from abbey to hillside to sumptuous mansion and the various inset scenes all superbly accentuated by Morgan Jones’ very atmospheric lighting. Steve Allan got the sound balance right between adults and children.

 The lynch-pin role of Maria was played by Heidi Cripps and from her first appearance on stage we knew this role was in splendid hands. Her rapport with the children was plain to see and I assume, as there were two teams of children, the standard was equalled at each performance. Paul Denman captured  the range of role of Captain Georg Von Trapp from stern disciplinarian to loving father. He mastered the songs well and he and Maria worked well together.Georgia Fawcett as Lisl was a warm vivacious young all round performer, and the scenes between her and Laurie Denman who played the telegraph boy Rolf were well played and showed the innocence of young love. All the children, at the performance I saw, had strong clear individual personalities and were well disciplined. Special praise must go to the nuns whose harmonies were just lovely to listen to and Sandra Graham as Mother Abbess gave a lovely rendition of ‘Climb Every Mountain’ which brought a tear to the eye. Director Alison Cripps  should have been well pleased with this delightful production, which is no less than I have come to expect from TWODS, so well done to everybody for their obvious hard work and dedication.

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