Who framed the Easter Bunny

This was my first time visiting the Mill Arts Centre and also being invited along to enjoy a RODS production.

From speaking with the secretary, Mike Gaskin, it is evident that RODS are an inclusive society, who not only care about their members but also their audiences and this is something I personally find refreshing when it comes to the amateur theatre circuit.

A desire to put on affordable theatre for the local community and to have fun doing it, is really what this is all about. 

The panto was an interesting choice for this time of year seeing as it was an Easter Bunny themed panto, however, I adored how it was interactive and the audience got to uncover clues as the show unfolded. 

Bones played by Leanne Van Berkum was a great character and well portrayed. I didn't receive a programme until after the show but it was evident in the dance routines that Leanne was the Choreographer.

The Tooth Fairy played by Franceska Blewitt and The Easter Bunny played by Gemma Elsey were perfectly cast. They were classically panto with great vocal projection and the likability factor.

The Halloween Queen was also played very well by Stephanie Phipps and she showed off some great vocals too.

Ross Longman was brilliant as The Bogeyman. His characterisation was very reminiscent of Noel Fielding and I enjoyed his character choices throughout.

The Laughing Policeman played by Zoe Tebbutt was hilarious and I also loved Poltergeist voiced by Jan Grice. 

The script itself was fairly good. I liked the way “well-known” characters all became connected in the story but the music, at times, was a little too outdated for the younger members of the audience and by younger, I mean anyone under the age of 30, as my guest had never heard of the song “dreaming” by the Everly Brothers, which was unfortunate as you needed to know the words to this song in order to uncover one of the clues.

Also the nod to the Ferrero Roche advert from the 90s is (sadly) too outdated for younger members to understand the joke.

As the target audience for this panto was local children, it may have been more appropriate to have music that appealed to them, throughout, albeit there were some excellent music choices too. I appreciate this was part of the script but really just something to consider for future show choices.

The pace of the show could have been improved by removing the black outs as we did seem to be sitting for longer than necessary periods between scenes. 

There was a relatively large cast so the scene changes could have been covered during the play off music by utilising these cast members to block the changes of scenes or even change the scenes, themselves. The beauty of panto is that anything goes, so you have a lot of scope to play around with, even if this involves the audience by breaking the forth wall.

The lighting at times wasn't really necessary and was very bright as the lights seemed to face out to the audience rather than towards the stage. 

The sound was effective when used for the halloween characters and it is a shame that if a character was wearing a mask, you couldn't really understand what they were saying as the sound was muffled.

Projection was very good for most of the cast. We did lose sound on some of the head mics on quite a few occassions. I'm not sure if there are microphones across the stage but I wonder if it may also have worked with no head mics at all. 

The audience were fairly vocal and seemed to be enjoying the show and I heard an elderly audience member say they would come back again for the Saturday matinee, which is great for the society.

I did have an enjoyable evening and am very grateful to have received such a warm welcome from a society which clearly has a huge heart.

Natalie Hills

District 10

NODA East

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