The Wreckers of Red Rock

The Wreckers of Red Rock uses music from many popular Gilbert and Sullivan works, but the story is an original Victorian melodrama by Fraser Charlton. Full of fun this production by Berny Murray had all the exaggeration and stereo typical characters of this genre of production; we have a villain, a hero, a beautiful damsel and, of course, babies mixed up at birth!

Leading from the front Paul Ellis is an excellent ‘Maximillian Blackheart’, plus his alter ego Sir Bernard Booth; the former a villain in disguise which the audience suitably reacted to and the latter a rich generous man. Paul even pops up at the end as the vicar. Paul’s performance was full of personality with a good voice handling all his numbers well including the tricky number in Act 2 “Take and my advice when deep in debt”. ‘Max’ is in love with ‘Maggie McPhee’ played convincingly by Lisa Adams, but she is in search of her long-prophesied lover and when meeting ‘William Valiant’, thinks he is the one. Lisa sang “The sun, whose rays” well.

‘William’ is played by Meriel Ford and has  good stage presence, full of stature with a very nice voice too. I liked “A magnet hung in a hardware shop” and the trio with ‘Hamish’ and ‘Seth’ “I am a maiden”. ‘Hamish’ (Mark Tooby) and ‘Seth’ (Paul Allsop) front the gents chorus, an inefficient band of revenue-men, who sang “When a felon’s not engaged in his employment” with gusto. ‘Hamish’ has a liking for ‘Molly’ (Rachael Hall) but wants to go back to the way they were before Covid! The well dressed ladies chorus (the wreckers who cannot marry for fear of prosecution) engage with the action throughout. ‘Jessie McPhee’ played by Christine Davies explains she is not Maggie’s real mother and gives us a lilting Scottish accent throughout. Megan Russell (‘Faith’) and Emily Butler (‘Hope’) supported the principal line-up.

Bearing in mind the production was to be moved to The Market Theatre Ledbury after the first two performances at the Norbury Theatre, the set was relatively simple but effective and supported, also effectively, by piano. It was an interesting variation to have the benefit of the music from 11 operettas in one production – well done to all involved.

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