The Wind in The Willows - The Pantomime

Everyone knows the story of Mr. Toad and his friends from the river bank, this was a new interpretation from a story written by Matt Isham who directed this production. It opened with Mole who sort of narrated the tale throughout the evening, when Toad wasn’t telling the story.

Mole appeared at the side of the seating to introduce the tale and proceeded onto the stage, there looked as though there were a few technical issues as the spot light came on, with no-one to illuminate as the show started. Maybe a little tentatively as this was opening night but Rhiannon gave a solid performance as Mole and was soon joined by Ashley as Ratty. Ashley’s was another solid performance and these two worked well together.

We quickly met the company as they gave us an opening dance number with straight forward choreography with steady vocals. This was a mostly young chorus who kept the pace going. We had our traditional pantomime baddie – Wilder Chief played by Charis, a confident performance and as someone sat next to me said, she’s got a sparkle in her eye. I felt a little sorry for our Pantomime Dame, John Pickering as Dame Nursie, it took a little while for the audience to warm up and he had a bit of hard work to start with, a couple of good wigs and some colourful costumes. There were the usual gormless sidekicks who seemed to have great fun and entertained the audience, both intentionally and unintentionally, well done Rot and Scrot, respectively Liz Lightfoot and Ian Farr. We didn’t see Badger, played by Gemma Lyon, until later in the show, who hid amazingly well behind the rock that purported to be the entrance to the Badger Sett, another solid performance. There were two confident youngsters playing the Wicked Fairies, Freya and Lily, clearly spoken. Then there was Marianne Holt as Toad who well played a larger-than-life character, much energy and frenzied activity on stage.

I did feel that the second act was slicker than the first act, there were some great little characters in the jail scene and sequences that followed, especially Stanley who played Hannibal. Clear and confident dialogue. Caleb Holt dressed as the dinosaur was mercilessly led around by Toad in the First Act, he must have got hot.

There was only one prompt that I heard but I wish she had been sat in the wings, with each blackout she switched her torch on which was a bit irritating from where I was sat almost behind her, some of the scene changes were a little slow but no doubt improved over the run. Costumes were straightforward and modern, Toad dressed as expected, colourful and multi-layered, the jail inmates all matching in orange boiler suits. Wildwooders in typical village costumes, animal make-up varied a little in intensity and Knuckles and Caleb would probably have benefitted from a stubble sponge rather than the heavy beard make-up. Sets were simple, especially the first act, more interest for act 2 with the Jail and Toads House, props were straight forward and Toad had great fun with the Mobility Scooter that acted as Toads Car. The songs were successfully mainly one verse solos however all the company came together for the finale of Act One with singing from Les Mis.

There were a lot of local references throughout which the audience seemed to enjoy and I suspect that they went away happy. Well done all for your hard work.

© NODA CIO. All rights reserved.