REVIEW: Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty at the New Victoria Theatre, Woking

A decade since its glorious premiere, Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty became the fastest-selling production in the New Adventures’ history when it was revived at Sadler’s Wells just a few months ago. Now embarking on another UK tour, the delights and dreams of this production find their way to a theatre near you, so you have no excuse to miss this utterly sensational ballet.

This gothic turn of the classic fairy tale beguiles and bewitches. It is a haunting and dark reimagining of the story of Princess Aurora we all know so well. With vampires, fairies and sorcerers at every turn, this production is not your typical fairy tale by any standard. Described as a “Gothic Romance”, there is much conflict and violence to be seen here. With peril seemingly around every corner and much to be feared, Sleeping Beauty keeps you on the edge of your seat.

REVIEW: Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty at Sadler's Wells

When it comes to fairy tales, we have often heard the story a thousand times before. Yet, when going to see a New Adventures production, every tale that you thought you knew, gets a whole new lease of life and magic, which is certainly the case for their current production of Sleeping Beauty, currently playing at Sadler’s Wells Theatre until January 15th 2023.

Having been a fan of Matthew Bourne for over ten years, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to attend the press night of Sleeping Beauty, as it reawakens celebrating 10 years since its premiere at Sadler’s Wells when it became the fastest-selling production in the company’s history.

Having mesmerised international audiences around the globe, I was eager to be transported into yet another mystical masterpiece by the company of New Adventures, who undoubtedly proved once again why they are an unstoppable world-class force to be reckoned with. 

REVIEW: Sleeping Beauty at The Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury

There are a lot of lines to learn in Sleeping Beauty – and that’s just for the audience! In addition to those which you have to call out for the entrance of various characters, there’s a whole range of bits of business which are traditional to the Marlowe theatre panto season itself. As they say – it's the law. As a Marlowe novice, there were moments where it felt like you’ve been invited to a friend’s house at Christmas and are suddenly expected to fall in with peculiar family traditions which everyone else finds completely normal.

Fortunately, the cast are warm and welcoming, so you don’t feel like an outsider for long. The production also has a refreshing quality which, as a veteran of many, many pantos, was a delight to discover. The quality in question is the way in which the show works for both adults and children but does so with almost no hint of a double-entendre. Now I’m not averse to these and have enjoyed many of Julian Clary’s innuendo-laced Palladium pantos, but this show is pitched perfectly so you don’t notice how carefully it’s been crafted, meaning such easy laughs are not needed and not missed.

REVIEW: Sleeping Beauty at the Churchill Theatre, Bromley

I’ve seen some great stars in panto at the Churchill over the years – Ronnie Corbett, Lionel Blair, Russ Abbot – but in more recent times such experienced performers have tended to be replaced by people who, in front of their name on the poster, have the words ‘CBBC’s…’ or ‘Emmerdale’s…’. To be fair some of them have been pretty good, but this year we’ve got a couple of proper names in the always good value, Bonnie Langford and Lee Mead. Along with Myra Dubois as the wicked fairy, Lloyd Hollett as Muddles, the Court Jester, Claudillea Holloway as the princess and Joelle Moses as the Queen, this combination proves to be the best overall cast I can recall.

Claudillea Holloway looks so genuinely happy to be the princess, with a radiant smile. And her voice is quite beautiful. As her mum, Queen Voluptua, Joelle Moses exudes a regal authority and knocks out some terrific notes of her own. She’s been Motormouth Maybelle in a production of Hairspray and I’d have loved to see her in that part.

REVIEW: Sleeping Beauty at the Wyvern Theatre, Swindon

QDOS has built its reputation for Pantomimes with high production values and big budgets with all-star casts and large special FX but they also run several smaller regional venues and stage shows for them at Christmas. The Wyvern Swindon is such a venue with a capacity of 650 and this year they entrusted Chris Jarvis with writing, directing and leading the cast as Happy Harry in an enjoyable retelling of Sleeping Beauty. He keeps the other fairies bestowing their wishes on the baby Rose, seeks to entrap the Prince as the culprit of the fatal spinning wheel and neatly avoids the need to travel forward in time by offering 100 years sleep or kiss of a true love as alternatives, not sequential requirements. The result is a lively entertaining well-balanced show with a strong ensemble feel to the cast of 7 principals, 5 dancers and 3 juveniles with a good mix of comedy business and well-known musical numbers.

Ben Kennedy supervises and arranges the music and with choreographer Lucy Dungate includes well drilled versions of "Burn Baby Burn", "Time Warp", "Walking on Sunshine", "Higher Love", "Can't stop the beat", "Don't stop me now" and "World of your imagination" with a full sound from the band of three, although in some parts of the venue the sound mix muffled the vocals. They are all upbeat recognisable tunes and add to the party atmosphere. The 3 juvenile female dancers are perfectly integrated into the professional dance routines to make a team of eight in the big numbers.

REVIEW: Sleeping Beauty at the Alban Arena

Sleeping Beauty is an established pantomime title with a strong appeal to a young audience but each writer adopts a different approach to the one hundred year time travel that is central to the story so it was very interesting to see two of this year’s productions on the same day. The Watford Palace version was written by the brilliantly creative Andrew Pollard and the Alban Arena version, just 10 miles up the road by the equally reliable Paul Hendy. There could not be a more contrasting approach to the same story with Princess Aurora falling for a Prince before the evil fairy’s spell sends her into a deep sleep despite her nannie and father’s best efforts to prevent it. But there the similarities end!

At the Alban Arena just up the road from the Watford palace it is completely different approach with the cast of 7 including three comics, six ensemble dancers, three kids’ teams and four musicians and they pack a great deal of business into the two- and half-hour show. Directed by the St Albans regular and favourite Bob Golding in his ninth year and back on stage again as the dame, Nurse Nellie it is very much his show. He knows what works with the audience and what is expected of an Alban Arena pantomime: lots of spurious comedy routines all set in the appropriately named Hamalot.

REVIEW: Sleeping Beauty at the Watford Palace

Sleeping Beauty is an established pantomime title with a strong appeal to a young audience but each writer adopts a different approach to the one hundred year time travel that is central to the story so it was very interesting to see two of this year’s productions on the same day. The Watford Palace version was written by the brilliantly creative Andrew Pollard and the Alban Arena version, just 10 miles up the road by the equally reliable Paul Hendy. There could not be a more contrasting approach to the same story with Princess Aurora falling for a Prince before the evil fairy’s spell sends her into a deep sleep despite her nannie and father’s best efforts to prevent it. But there the similarities end!

At Watford the saviour is Fairy Fender, a lively personable performance from Thomas Fabian Parrish in a seventies wig and jump suit who happens to arrange time travel. We are first taken to 1957 to meet Vince Prince, an excuse for some Elvis Presley songs and impressions before going further back in time to 1539 and Aurora’s birth. By the time her eighteenth birthday arrives in 1557 the Princess, charmingly played by Nikita Johal has met both Prince (assuming he is an actual Prince) and Fender but Pestilentia Blight (as Caraboose is called) played by Arabella Rodrigo still delivers the fatal prick from within a giant 18th Birthday cake. Fender then mistakenly sends her forward 400 years with her father (Lenny VIII played by John Macneill) and her nanny (Fanny played by Richard Emerson) so the Prince can awaken her! The comedy is mainly delivered by Fanny (the Dame) and Leonie Spilsbury as Sowesta, a talking pig.

REVIEW: Sleeping Beauty at Greenwich Theatre

Everyone knows the age-old tale of Sleeping Beauty, but Greenwich theatre have stretched the traditional story and centred it around Russia, the moon, and 50 years of Greenwich Theatre… obviously.

It’s 1969 and we are introduced to a “very very Scottish” actor, Ewan (Regan Burke). As he wanders the dark corridors of Greenwich Theatre, he comes across a common item found in London theatres; A Faberge egg. He releases its magical power in the form of Fairy Faberge (Funlola Olufunwa), who waves her sparkly egg-wand and whisks him back in time to 1850s Russia. We meet the Tsar and Tsarina (Martin Johnston and writer/director Andrew Pollard respectively) and the evil Rasputin (Anthony Spargo) who has cast a spell on a mirror to rid Russia of the Tsar and Tsarina and take over the world, as every good panto villain wishes to do.

With a stunning design from Cleo Pettit, both the set and costumes have all the appropriate panto sparkle and shine with great flavours of Russia and some ridiculously tight trousers for Ewan when he accidentally becomes ‘Major Tom’ after a confusion with a costume fitting. The set consists of a huge revolve which is utilised expertly to show the passage of time during the famous 100 years sequence, and also allows the pace of the show to keep up with the short attention span of the younger audience members. 

REVIEW: Sleeping Beauty at the New Victoria Theatre

Matthew Bourne’s ‘Sleeping Beauty’ re-imagines the classic fairytale with a gothic twist. This contemporary ballet, like Princess Aurora, is a thing of true beauty. Utterly captivating from start to finish, with humour delicately interwoven and a vampire or two thrown in for good luck.

This production was incredibly refreshing, and while it nods to the upstanding traditions of classical ballet, it is happy to drastically re-write the rule book on a number of things. To some, ballet is synonymous with men in tights, pointe shoes and epic acts of considerable length. This reimagining is wonderfully up-to-date and thrilling to behold. Most of the performance is carried out bare-foot by all the performers, and there is no Lycra in sight. Furthermore, the running time is just right. At just over 2 hours (including an interval), the whole audience seemed very comfortable.