When The Lights go on Again

We have just seen all the celebrations for the 70th Anniversary of the D Day landings and what better time to do a show such as this which tells the story of the Second World War through the eyes of a typical family, The Parkers, whose son is called up and goes into the Navy.

Starting with a sing-a-long of war time songs led by Iain Price, the Musical Director, this got the audience in the right spirit for the evening ahead.

As I have said the story revolves around the Parker family lead, of course as it would be in those days, by the mum, Alice Parker, played admirably by Rachel Woolhouse. Rachel was able to deliver her lines with professionalism and as it would have been at that time to keep the family together. Others in the family were also played well by Guy Batty as Fred Parker, the father of the group, Guy played this again as the typical man of the times who was more interested in his newspaper than what was really happening, although I do have to say there were times when I had difficulty hearing his lines.The grandmother of the family was played excellently by Sandra Dickinson, she was able to deliver her lines well which I guess was not an easy job as much of the time she was either sleeping or just watching the rest of the family so had to keep her wits about her. The Family was made up of the children, David, who is the one called up and played well by Jake Lomas, Jane, whose boyfriend was also called up, played by Elena Motta and the two smaller ones, Susan and Jimmy played by Jennifer Chivers and Harry Sagar respectively.

There are lots of well known songs in this show which got the audience joining in and it was good to see so many young members of the audience singing along too. The opening number, When the Lights go on Again, was delivered perfectly by Kyle Tomlinson, who has a beautiful boy soprano voice and lends itself well to this type of song, Kyle also sang other songs during the evening.

As the story unfolds we hear letters from the various boys at the front line and songs which fitted in with the theme of the letters, these were delivered well by Lucie Cooper, Steve Allott, Thomas White and Sue Higgins who also performed in the Andrew’s Sisters numbers when she was joined by Lucie and Ellie Cooper.

There was a really good “Camp Concert” in which the Sergeant Major played by Dean Watson tried without success to keep his troops in order; we were also treated to a “Over the Garden Wall” scene played to perfection by Cevin Barker and Mick Parker.

Congratulations to all involved in this production.

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