REVIEW: The RSC's Julius Caesar at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre

 

There is great pleasure in travelling to Stratford-Upon-Avon to see Shakespeare performed at the theatre and by a company that bears his name. It is a delightful setting and even on a cold spring afternoon, a stroll along the Avon reflecting on its historical heritage and supper in the Theatre’s excellent Rooftop Restaurant makes the trip a special event. The memories of seeing Sir Ian McKellen, Sir Kenneth Branagh, Dame Judi Dench, or Sir Anthony Sher perform the great roles of the canon build the anticipation of seeing a play even if we have seen the title performed before. The RSC has a huge responsibility to showcase the works, to broaden their appeal and enhance and build on its four-hundred-year legacy. The balance between innovation in the staging to “freshen” its appeal and staying true to the historical story is the Director’s responsibility and the choices he makes will determine the success of striking this balance.

Director Atri Banerjee states in the programme he was working “towards a more complex understanding of the world” and that the “Company member's own identities have fed into the show”. Such an approach must also help us, as an audience, understand what we are seeing and what it is saying to us and not distract us from the narrative or leave us confused over the intention. The play is a debate about regime change and the impact on the conspirators and the response from the wider public. To engage with the characters, we need to understand their status in society and feel the gravitas that enables them to carry a crowd but sadly in this production we see people casually dressed apparently of equal status speaking the lines in hysterical rages. He adds a so-called Community Chorus in black gowns who appear as observers with a curious opening to each Act when they blow over the Soothsayer and Cinna before a bizarre stomping dance that feels out of place with the historical narrative. When the assassination takes place black goo is used to symbolise blood and the conspirators remain smeared with it for the rest of the show for no obvious reason. They look like messy painters or printers rather than bloodied murderers.

REVIEW: Home, I’m Darling at the New Victoria Theatre, Woking

As one-character quotes, nostalgia is not what it used to be, and author, Laura Wade uses this idea to explore feminist themes about the role of women as long-suffering wives and how women’s choices have changed over the last seventy years. We meet Judy played with a delightful playful charm by Jessica Ransom in her ideal Fifties home, dressed stylishly in period costume and lovingly waiting on her husband, Johnny, played by Neil McDermott, the family breadwinner who is “appallingly happy”. The setting, music and styling paint a picture of perfect marriage enjoying a Fifties lifestyle but (spoiler alert) when Judy pulls out her Apple laptop from a drawer, we realise that all is not as it seems. 

Through a short neatly staged flashback scene we discover she adopted this lifestyle three years ago when she was offered redundancy from her successful job and that she is a smart fifties obsessed 38-year-old struggling to reconcile and understand the reaction of those around her to her own life choices and gradually the play explores the reality of the situation and the relationships with her husband, mother, work colleagues and friends. The writing is sharp and witty, the staging slick and well-choreographed and the characters well-developed and believable. The interplay between Judy and Johnny is beautifully handled drawing us into their chosen world and then blowing it apart as the other relationships test their commitment to both the lifestyle and each other and setting us to wonder whether their marriage can survive the tests. The challenge hits home when one character asks Judy “ what do you do all day?”.

REVIEW: Hay Fever at the Mill at Sonning

It’s nearly 100 years since Noel Coward’s farcical comedy about the eccentric Bliss Family was first staged in the West End and it seems appropriate to mount a new production at the lovely Mill at Sonning in Berkshire just 12 miles from Cookham where the play is set. Yet the play is something of a curiosity of the period filled with theatrical games played by the self-centred egotistical family. Its artificiality may have amused us 100 years ago but now it all seems a little tiresome and we never care for any of the characters or are particularly amused by their affected behaviour. It does not have the exquisite wit and banter of his 1930 play Private Lives, the spectacle of the 1931 extravaganza Cavalcade, the beauty and romance of his 1936 play Still Life (so delightfully revived at the Mill at Sonning recently), the comical self-parody of the 1942 Present Laughter or even the wonderful characters of the 1941 Blithe Spirit. 

Perhaps students of Coward’s extensive legacy of plays and music will see in this earlier play elements that he would later develop in his work. It is easy to see why Critics often gave mixed reviews when his new plays opened but also to recognise the enduring impact he had on Theatre. Therefore, if you have not seen the play before it is worth a trip down to Berkshire to catch it and reflect on why the central character Judith has been played over the years by such as Edith Evans, Celia Johnson, Penelope Keith, Maria Aitken, Geraldine McEwan, Judi Dench, Stephanie Beacham, Lindsay Duncan, Googie Withers, Dora Bryan, Celia Imrie, Nichola McAuliffe and Felicity Kendal. This is a phenomenal roll call and suggests it’s a part that the best female actresses of the day love to play.

REVIEW: The King and I at the Wycombe Swan Theatre

Bartlett Sher’s magnificent revival of Rogers and Hammerstein’s wonderful 1951 musical was first produced for the Lincoln Centre in New York in 2015 before being remounted at the London Palladium and released to cinemas in 2018. The production has been recast and remounted for an extensive UK tour which began in January 2023 in Canterbury and currently continues until November in Norwich and last week visited the Swan in High Wycombe for a sell-out week. It is well worth catching with its beautiful score, simple slick staging and appropriately diverse cast lead by Helen George as Anna and Darren Lee as the King.

Helen George is best known for her role in Call the Midwife but fully inhabits the role of the Governess arriving in Siam with her young son Louis and standing up to and winning over the dictatorial King. She handles the huge crinoline dresses with aplomb and delivers her songs with great passion and a good voice. She may not have the stage presence of Kellie O’Hara who played the role in New York and London, but she gives full range to the emotions from anger to caring and growing respect for the King and makes a very good and convincing Anna. We feel her nerves in “Whistle a happy tune”, her sorrow and hope in “Hello young lovers” and her joy in “Getting to know you”.

REVIEW: Hedda Gabler at the Reading Rep

Reading Rep is celebrating its tenth anniversary of its formation and a second season in its new venue with some bold and original adaptations of familiar stories. After the glorious success of a one-woman version of Jekyll and Hyde with the incredible Audrey Brisson and an intriguing resetting of Christmas Carol in the Huntley and Palmer Reading Biscuit factory comes a modern adaptation of Hedda Gabler set somewhere near London. This risk-taking approach to theatre combined with a £10 ticket price for those under 30 appears to be engaging the local communities and bringing a younger excitable audience into the venue which is to be celebrated and applauded.

The original Henrik Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler was written in 1891 around a woman trapped in a marriage and a house that she does not want and has been considered by many as one of the great dramatic female roles in theatre. When I saw Sheridan Smith play the role at Old Vic in 2012, she beautifully captured the tragic consequences of her manipulative behaviour in a grand period house. This new production at the Reading Rep intimate venue is written by Harriet Madeley and seeks to reinvent the story in a modern setting with the two rival academic authors competing for publication as well as the attention of Hedda now given a modern twist by changing the gender of Eilert Lovburg, her former lover to Isla. The rest follows with the three women, Isla, Thea and Hedda secretly attracted to each other, seemingly without the men, George, her husband, and Brack, now a publishing agent being fully aware. Curiously the effect is that rather than feeling Hedda is trapped in a six-week-old marriage, she seems manipulative and in control of her actions and one wonders why she simply does not leave her husband whose mind is clearly on his work. Indeed, the characters have become one-dimensional and their jumps in behaviours seem unrealistic and unbelievable.

REVIEW: Charlotte and Theodore at the Theatre Royal Bath

The title of Charlotte and Theodore, the new play by Ryan Craig which is enjoying its world premiere at the Ustinov Studio in Bath until 18th March before a short tour to Richmond and Cambridge, does not do justice to the brilliant writing and performances of this clever two-hander. The promotional blurb states, “cancel culture, gender politics, trans rights, online abuse and power struggles are all at play on a university campus” and suggests a rather dry woke debate about modern society driven by social media activism but instead the ninety-minute romp is a funny, witty and pacy exploration of a couple’s relationship over ten years which resonates with Generation X and older audiences. Despite running straight through it never stops amusing and engaging and we could have happily sat through another few scenes of their life together. 

The script is a beautifully observed debate about modern-day gender roles in family life, the ambition and desire for career success and the impact of the community they live in on their relationship. It’s packed with metaphors and allegories that illustrate and amuse and seem to sit naturally in the mouths of two philosophy lecturers at the university. How do you describe a desk that identifies as a stool? Why symbolically is Teddy's last costume change in front of Lotte’s wardrobe? What happens when a flock of swarming birds get caught in a change of wind direction?

REVIEW: Sister Act at the New Victoria Theatre, Woking

When I saw this production at the Hammersmith Eventim Apollo in August 2022 with an all-star cast including Jennifer Saunders, Keala Settle and Beverley Knight it was a glitzy star-driven show with ticket prices up to £250 to justify and while enjoyable I noted that the show was designed for the UK Tour to follow and would represent much better value in regional venues around the UK. The tour arrived at the New Victoria Woking this week with a full house on a Monday night with a top price of £62 and proved that it is a wonderful feel-good party night out. The tour will now continue until April 2024 with 24 more venues to visit so there are plenty of opportunities to get a party together to go and enjoy the show.

The Hammersmith cast largely continues on the tour with Lesley Joseph stepping up as Mother Superior to replace Jennifer Saunders, Sandra Marvin moving from alternate Deloris Van Cartier to replace Beverley Knight and Catherine Millsom stepping up as Sister Mary Patrick to replace Keala Settle. Overall, the band and ensemble are reduced to make it more economical to tour but the show still delivers a fun, nostalgic and uplifting night out and is no less enjoyable despite the absence of the headline stars.

REVIEW: Fishermen’s Friends at the Mayflower Southampton

The story of Fishermen’s Friend singers from Port Isaac in Cornwall began in 1995 but sprung to wider recognition with the release of their album in April 2010 which charted at number 9 on UK album charts and then became a charming film in 2019 with a sequel in 2022. It became a stage musical in October 2021 and after a trip to Toronto, the tour continues until 2023 May around the UK. If you are a fan of their sea shanties or looking for a feel-good night out it is worth catching the tour but don’t expect anything new or groundbreaking. It is simply a fun night out.

It is a large cast to tour with 24 performers on stage and a large grand set designed by Lucy Osbourne of the Port Isaac Harbour which is cleverly adapted for other interior scenes in the Golden Lion Pub and later In Compton Street London. At the heart of the story, and the characters that give the show an emotional connection, are three generations of a family. Maggie (played with a strong Cornish accent and a lot of charm by Susan Penhaligon) and Jago, her husband and elderly fisherman (played by Cornishman Robert Duncan) are parents to Jim who seems to act as spokesman for the band and carries the scars of his wife leaving him (a gruff James Gaddas) and grandparents to Alywyn (a strong performance from Parisa Shamir with a delightful haunting delivery of several folk ballads).

REVIEW: The Mirror Crack’d at the Wycombe Swan Theatre

Agatha Christie’s detective creation Miss Marple has been adapted for film, TV, and stage in many incarnations from Margaret Rutherford (in the sixties), Joan Hickson (1984-1992), and Geraldine McEwan (2004-2008) and in this latest stage adaptation Susie Blake plays the role more in the style of Hickson and McEwan than Rutherford. Rachel Wagstaff’s adaptation of The Mirror Crack’d cleverly uses Marple’s rather static investigation model in this case with a sprained ankle as a springboard to create a stage adaption that explores different characters' recall of key moments around a murder through flashback re-enactments to accompany the witnesses’ interview with her and the Chief Inspector Craddock (Oliver Boot).

This then requires a fluid setting where characters appear while Marple reflects or chats to someone, so everything revolves around Adrian Linford’s single truck of a corridor between two see-through walls. It fails to have a sense of period, the fifties I think, but it allows for some creative moments where we see through the walls someone is listening in or for an imagined lineup of suspects. Not so clever was the poor masking of the stage left wing which telegraphed each entrance and even props being prepared for a scene or the lack of personal microphones which meant some voices were very quiet in the large Wycombe Swan auditorium. However, these are the compromises of a touring show with different size stages and although irritating did not detract from the overall quality of the production.

REVIEW: 2:22 A Ghost Story at The Lyric Theatre

2.22 - A Ghost Story is quite a West End phenomenon, not so much because of its subject of paranormal activity in the bedroom of an old-fashioned London house but because of its ability to attract an audience on the basis of the star casting as Jenny, the young mother who reports experiencing some disturbing activity at 2.22 am on each of the last few nights. Lily Allen (5.1 m twitter & 1.5m Instagram followers) opened the show at the Noel Coward in August 2021, Giovanni Fletcher (465k Twitter & 2m Instagram followers) played the Gielgud, Laura Whitmore (438k twitter & 1.5 m Instagram followers) played at the Criterion and now Cheryl (formerly known as Cheryl Cole) with 5.5 m Twitter and 3.4m Instagram followers stars in the show for the short season at the Lyric. No doubt the jubilant producers are already planning its next surprising cast announcement and another move of venue at the end of the current run. The casting is clearly designed to appeal to the followers of these young high-profile stars and seems to be working very effectively so reviews will hardly affect sales as each star brings the publicity and fan base to ensure a successful run.

Cheryl makes her stage debut in the role as Jenny and once you have adjusted to her Tyneside accent which means occasionally will lose a few words, she makes a solid job of conveying the love of a new mother, the concern at the mysterious noises, and the anger at her disbelieving husband. After relatively nervous and contained opening scenes, she burst into life as the mystery unfolds and we are drawn more into the simmering tensions between her and her husband and their guests. It is a very credible and convincing performance suggesting this could be the start of a new career for her.

REVIEW: An Evening of Magic at The Mill at Sonning

The Mill at Sonning has a very full programme of other events around its regular play season with tribute bands, comics and magic attracting audiences on Sunday and Monday nights throughout the year. It clearly works for on a dark January Monday night the car park, restaurant and theatre was packed by 6.30 pm for An Evening of Magic. The three acts and host perform on the main stage in the set of We’ll always have Paris and the round thrust stage is hardly perfect for close up and slight of hand magic with around a third of the audience viewing side on as the artists played mainly to those in the middle of the rows. Of course, if you like an extra clue as to how the trick is done the side on view as they dip their hands in their pockets or pick up a prop helps, and the evening demonstrates that magic is 25% about the trick and 75% about the presentation and banter around it.

Dan Hudson, a local magician, hosts the show and warms the audience well with his natural style and chatty engagement as he fills two empty seats in the front row with two people who booked late and are sat at the side walls. He performs a few tricks with cards and then predicting how an audience member will colour in a picture of a Nike spirts trainer. His comedy banter and style sells the tricks well and get the show off to a good start before he settles in the aisle to watch each act he introduces.

REVIEW: The Ocean at the End of the Lane at the New Victoria Theatre, Woking

The National Theatre’s extraordinary production of The Ocean at the End of the Lane continues its UK tour at Woking’s New Victoria Theatre before heading off to another twenty-seven venues through September. Rarely will you see such a brilliant theatrical stage magic experience in these regional theatres as in this production with its exquisite lighting design, beautifully conceived and executed magical illusions and thrilling performances. They create an ethereal world where reality and mysticism merge in an exploration on our childhood memories and fears and of the heartbreak of death and passing over to the afterworld. 

Neil Gaiman’s book which has been adapted for the stage by Joel Harwood explicitly draws inspiration from the books we see and hear the boy reading in the play. The classic stories of Alice in Wonderland, The Lion and the witch and the wardrobe and Peter Pan all revolve around children on the edge of adolescence who discover an alternative world down a rabbit hole, through a wardrobe or by a flight across London and this book explores the same life transition through its own portal to the alternative world, in this case, the ocean at the end of the lane (a farmyard pond!). Are the alternative world and the family and creatures the boy meets real or just a product of his vivid imagination and swirling hormones? We hear the story from the grown-up boy returning to the area he lived in for a funeral and having his memories jogged by meeting Old Mrs Hempstock, a wonderfully charismatic Finty Williams with strong echoes of her own mother, Dame Judi Dench in her performance. We learn he has returned before, but he has no memories of that until prompted. 

REVIEW: We'll Always Have Paris at the Mill at Sonning

The Mill at Sonning’s wonderful dinner theatre in Berkshire programmes for an audience it knows well with an attractive mix of comedy, thrillers, and musicals. The 2023 season will feature unusually two major musicals (instead of a thriller) the wonderful Gypsy (May to July) and the marvellous Cole Porter’s High Society (November to January 2024) as well as the classic 1920’s comedy Hay Fever (March to May), a revival of the hilarious Ayckbourn’s How the other half lives (August to September) and a reworking of a Ray Cooney farce It’s her turn now (September to November). The season starts with a less well-known title, We’ll always have Paris, about three old school friends who meet up for a weekend in a rented rooftop apartment in Paris and its exploration of how women in their mid-sixties look at life and reflect on their past resonates perfectly with many in the Mill’s regular diners. 

Sally Hughes who runs the venue has directed this new version, updating the script for references to Love island, Trump and Brexit since it was last staged at the venue in 2010 to give it a more topical feel. Jill Hyem’s script is already packed with witty lines that give laugh-out-loud moments of recognition like giving up statins because “you can’t live in Paris and worry about cholesterol” or referring to her past life as “a hitchhikers guide to the fallacy”. It plays clever amusing games with the French and English languages as the visitors learn to get on with the French and try to improve their language skills. Some of it sounds like a recall of a Monty Python sketch which perfectly resonates with the Mill’s clientele.

REVIEW: Mother Goose at the Duke of York's Theatre

This was my twenty-second pantomime of the 2022/23 season and you hope through the marathon set of visits to save the best to last. After six Jack and the Beanstalks, six Cinderellas, three Aladdins, two Goldilocks and three bears, a beauty and the beast, a sleeping beauty, and a Snow White, the second Mother Goose proved to be just that. What’s more, there are still ten venues to catch it again at until 16th April – so book now to see a real treat. 

Jonathan Harvey’s brilliant script does everything you want for a Pantomime, it makes sense of the Mother Goose Story, builds cleverly on the talents of the cast, and integrates the traditional Panto business into the tale so it makes a coherent whole. John Bishop tells the audience in his ten-minute warm-up before the curtain rises to forget what it's like outside and immerse themselves in the Panto experience and the whole cast works wonderfully together to make sure that happens.

REVIEW: Jack and the Beanstalk at the London Palladium

The London Palladium has been the undisputed home of quality variety for many decades and since 2016 has been the home of the biggest pantomime, not only in London but in England with more stars, bigger ensembles, grander sets, and special effects and has built an adoring fan base who know what to expect from Julian Clary and his returning band of co-stars. They know what works and sells the tickets even at the huge prices of £160 for the best stall seat. The confidence the team now have in the formula enabled them to take the bold decision to remove around forty of the premium stalls seats to accommodate the base of the beanstalk that grows up into the auditorium roof to end Act 1, enough lost Gross Box Office to fund most other regional pantomimes! It makes for an impressive if rather telegraphed Act 1 finale but does not reach the stunning spectacle of the upside-down motorbike or double-decker bus flying over the audience in other shows.

The production honours the traditions of Music Hall variety and Musical Theatre concerts that have graced the stage before and as Clary gleefully acknowledges the plot rarely gets in the way of the next turn. Each star is given their moment to deliver their turn alone or in partnership with a CoStar and many of the best-loved routines are included from previous shows and especially from Matt Slack’s Birmingham Hippodrome productions and other Crossroads shows of the last few years. The lip sync routine, the trunk of truth, the tongue twister, If I were not upon the stage, the dance-off, “Who’s at first base”, and even young Nicholas in the songsheet all get included and are well executed but crisper fresher versions have been done in prior years. 

REVIEW: Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Theatre Royal Bath

Edward Albee’s 1962 three-act play Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? is perhaps best known for the 1966 film which starred Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton as the aggressive game-playing American couple who live on the campus of a small New England College. It is an uncomfortable challenging play over three Acts which are subtitled as a clue to the progressively unpleasant behaviours of the older protagonists. Act 1, Fun and Games, sees the couple Martha and George invite a young couple Nick and Honey back to their house at 2 am after a faculty party in a drunken series of interactions. Act 2, Walpurgisnacht (a reference to a witches' meeting) ups the tension as the games become more serious and fractious. Act 3, The Exorcism reveals the truths amongst the illusions and games. The result is a long evening in which the action, though dramatic, involves four particularly unsympathetic characters touching on child abuse, murder, adultery, sexual harassment, and bullying behaviours in the context of an unfulfilled career and inadequacies of marriage.

This latest production is staged in the Ustinov Theatre tucked around the back of the glorious Theatre Royal in Bath. It is a black-walled claustrophobic cramped venue which should offer the audience intimacy and engagement with the performance but the armless stiff-backed seats and heavy herbal cigarette smoke from the chain-smoking Martha created a heady uncomfortable atmosphere in which it was difficult to really settle and appreciate the production. It makes a sharp contrast to the Alan Ayckbourn 1965 comedy, Relatively Speaking, which is also a four-handed about martial problems and role-playing, which is on at the main house at Bath Theatre Royal and offers a much more fun and congenial evening’s entertainment. This play is said to have some laugh-out-loud moments but on my visit, those around me responded with stifled embarrassed chuckles and the sharp contrast between the comedy and the grim aggressive tone was missing.

REVIEW: Aladdin at the Theatre Royal Bath

Aladdin is one of the best Pantomime titles, it's full of great opportunities for magical and comical business such as the Laundry scene, the attempts of The Emperor to stop his daughter being seen by Aladdin, the meeting of Widow Twankey and her long-lost brother-in-law Abanazar, the cave transformation and genie’s appearance, the magic carpet ride and of course Abanazar’ s final defeat. It has however become caught up in the debate about inclusivity and diversity in casting as it is based in China and because some past productions have included some racial stereotypes. The UK Production’s latest version with a script by Jon Monie which played at the Theatre Royal Bath until 8th January does its best to steer through this minefield with a diverse cast and set in Humdrum Heights while sticking with the traditional storyline and names. 

Tom Lister as Abanazar drives the show with a delightfully strong energetic performance, revelling in his evil persona and the audience’s reaction to him and geeing them up to react more. He interacted brilliantly with the stage right box having caught a young audience member out once and played on it beautifully thereafter. Indeed, his sortie into the audience armed with a water pistol was so distracting that the audience completely ignored the song being sung on stage! The character takes charge right from the start with a very good prologue setting out the story in a three-way rhyming couplet opening with the spirit of the ring (Amy Perry) and the Genie (Maddison Tyson) and then a well-judged comical romantic first meeting with Widow Twankey (Nick Wilton) in “You are the one that I want”.

REVIEW: Goldilocks and the Three Bears at the Mayflower Theatre, Southampton

When you produce a show built around star names and their past performances to attract the crowd, you are left with some difficulty when that star is indisposed and can’t appear leaving a gaping void that is hard for even the best understudy to fill. So, when the Count Ramsey of Erinsborough walked on stage in the opening scene to speak his opening lines in an Australian accent there was a gasp of disappointment as 2000 people immediately realised that Jason Donovan had succumbed to the cold, he had highlighted on a recent TV interview. James-Lee Harris filled those shows well but without Donavan’s stage presence and interaction with the rest of the cast it did feel a bit flat. To make matters worse this title is short on story, as the Dame remarked when another bit of pantomime business was over, “get back to the plot, thin as it is”. 

So, it is left to Richard Cadell to entertain the audience in his own variety show dressed as Joey the clown. He is a curious mixture of “handler” of the glove puppets Sooty, Sweep and Soo, Magician and illusionist with his assistant Sarah Jane Lowe and old-fashioned comedy stooge. His Trunk of truth and Chapel Bell's routines that focus attention on his private parts would have embarrassed Soo if she had appeared. His routines with Sooty and Sweep (who of course don’t speak) are a little lost on the enormous Mayflower stage but at least the good old water pistols were used to comic effect by Sweep as he cried all over the front rows! He interacted well with the audience and the Dame, Adam Strong, in the chat-up routine but was at his best with two young children in the songsheet treading brilliantly the balance between getting laughs and upsetting the young kids. When he asked the young boy the easy question “What do you find in a CHEESE sandwich” and the lad replied “Pickle” it deservedly got the biggest laugh of the night.

REVIEW: Cinderella at the Lighthouse, Poole

By the time you read this review, this year’s production of Cinderella at the Lighthouse Theatre in Poole will have almost finished its run but read on because the same team will be back next year with a production of Aladdin which is a title with more magical business and narrative than most other titles and is sure to be a good show. What does it take to be a great pantomime and why is the Poole team so effective? 

Firstly, it needs a writer and director who understands both his audience and the genre and brings a wealth of experience in appearing and producing shows. In Chris Jarvis who is in his fourth pantomime at the venue and who has almost thirty on Children's TV, the venue is lucky to have such experience at the heart of the production. The essential story beats must be part of the show, in the case of Cinderella (played by Charlotte Wood) when she first meets the Prince (played by Tyger Drew-Honey) in the woods, the invitation tearing scene with the Ugly sisters, Buttons trying to cheer her up with a nine-carrot necklace, the clock striking midnight and the slipper trying on scene. At Poole, all were present and delivered with charm in keeping with the traditions of the show. 

REVIEW: Snow White at The Old Savoy

The Old Savoy is a delightful Art Deco venue independently owned and deserves the support of its local community in Northampton. For this year’s Pantomime that support is secured by the inclusion of four teams of Junior Ensemble who must surely bring in huge friends and family audiences to see them. What is more is that this Junior Ensemble made the visit worthwhile as they are wonderful throughout. The four teams consist of seven dancers, six gymnasts and seven as the non-discriminatory modern interpretation of Disney’s Seven Dwarfs. Indeed, although they do project an image of Snow White from that cartoon over the proscenium at the start, this version could not be further from that famous film in its style.

The Super Seven are Diddy, Sussy, Sassy, Freaky, Windy, Wokey and the Guvnor but it is Wokey that keeps popping up to keep the show modern and on track. Her clever and very clearly enunciated interruptions seem to both highlight current politically correct statements while at the same time gently poking fun at them, keeping both sides of the debate satisfied! She explains that they “don’t believe that people should be given labels or named after physical attributes”, although Windy regularly reminds us of why she is so named. She says their names are “only acceptable because we say so”. When the Prince finally arrives to awaken the sleeping Snow White Wokey steps forward to stop him giving her a “non-consensual kiss” but then follows up when she is awake with a “fill your boots son”.