The Sound of Musicals

Congratulations to each and every member of the company for giving the audience a very special evening. As always with BROS the cast had fun and therefore the audience did as well.  The opening was lively with a simple introduction followed by a rousing rendition of Ragtime with a large team of the younger members dancing their socks off. This was shortly followed by ‘Old Folks’, another great number for the slightly older members of the cast.  This set the standard for this exceptional production giving all ages an opportunity to show off their various talents incorporating a really outstanding tap routine lead by Wez Sebastian and many solos, duets and trios performed by a good cross section of this talented company. The whole show moved seamlessly from one number to another, so that everything was linked, without any pauses, incorporating a wonderful mix of both well known and traditional songs with some new, more modern compositions and some from ‘way back when’, thus treating the audience to a delightful evening’s entertainment. The production team did an excellent job with the staging of all the musical numbers, bringing out the best in all the performers, the music was a pleasure to hear, the lighting worked well and the costumes were varied and very suitable and colourful. Throughout the evening there were some very good solo performances, notably from Liz Lawrence (May be this Time – Cabaret) and again paired up with Miles Eden (Have a Little Priest – Sweeney Todd) a great comedy number causing much laughter from the audience. Julie Waite always carries her expression through to her eyes, which gives a song more interest, which was certainly the case when she paired up with Bruce Stewart, another great comedy performer, (Ah Yes I Remember it Well – Gigi) and a delightfully sung (Everything’s Coming up Roses – Gypsy). Katie sang movingly with a great performance of ‘Somewhere That’s Green’ and joined up with Wez to lead ‘Steal Your Rock and Roll’ from Memphis performed with all the chorus closing the first half in a very lively and upbeat fashion. The second half opened with two good group numbers from ‘The Lord of the Rings’ followed by Autumn Days courtesy of Richard Millen who joined forces with Ian Booker, another excellent soloist, singing ‘Lily’s eyes’ and, with the chorus added, a rousing showstopper (‘Gaston – Beauty and the Beast). Maria Browning, Betty Jones and Caroline all sang some lovely solos and joined up in pairs or trios giving this show plenty of variation and Tony Bright lead the closing of the production with an outstanding rendition of the Anthem from ‘Chess’ after which being joined by all the society for ‘Ragtime’ and ‘You Can’t Stop the Beat’ from Hairspray.

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