Cinderella - Review - People's Theatre

Cinderella
The People's Theatre
8th December 2018


Written by Philip Meeks
Directed by Emma Jane Richards

Panto season has started again, and this year The People's Theatre have returned to the old classic Cinderella for their seasonal offering. I first saw Cinderella here back in 2011 with Emma Jayne Richards in the title role. This year she is directing the show and though the basic formula is intact, there are one or two little tweaks to the recipe.



To begin with, the stage doesn't give much away - just the curtain with Cinderella in suitably sparkly letters (so we know what we're here to see!) I admit to be being a touch surprised. This is pretty bare, no hint of a town, no castle in the distance, no branches suggesting a creepy forest? Two doorways either side of the stage draped with pink swags are the only clues to the princessy tale about to unfold. But, oh when the lights go down and the music starts! It's like the build up to the Oscars with music that builds to a fanfare crescendo and lights that dance across the stage and up into the audience like fairy dust...searchlights beam across us, as if looking for the stars on the red carpet! And then a flash and a bang - we screech in surprise and laugh at ourselves as Fairy Moonglow (Lynn Huntley) appears to introduce the story. She doesn't have it all to herself though - her evil sister Countess Malady (Cat White) muscles in to break the bad news that she has just married Count Hardup (Roger Liddle)  and is now Cinderella's new mother. I can't help but feel parents should take more care when naming their supernatural offspring - calling a fairy "Malady" is just asking for trouble.  

You all know the story - Cinderella (Georgia White) is forced out of her place in the family by the new stepmother and the ugly sisters, Buttons (Joe Robson) loves her but she only likes him, a handsome prince comes to visit but swaps places with his manservant and is taken down a peg by Cinders and is immediately smitten by her. He arranges a ball, Cinders can't go, cue Fairy Godmother and pumpkins and glass slippers and romance till midnight. 


Thrown into the mix are the usual panto ingredients:
There are the cross-dressing dames - Calpolla and Covonia, played by Stephen Waller and Dan Dickinson - who bicker and bite their way through the show, arguing with each other, with Buttons, with the audience...with everyone and anyone, except the good looking guys, basically! These two pretty sisters(!) are living examples of why proper blending is SO important when applying your make-up. 
There are helpful woodland animals, played by the ensemble from Jill Errington School of Dance, and the scary haunted bedroom scene (so scary one little girl had to be taken out until the scene was safely over!) 
And of course there is the community singing which this year is the ubiquitous Baby Shark - you know it had to be in there somewhere!

The script is pretty standard, but nice touches that raise this up from standard panto fayre are the ensemble of footmen and Dandini (James Harvey), the prince's right hand man, who are a rather hipster troup, looking very smart in their frock coats and stockings. While Prince Charming (Nick Warneford) is a deliciously swaggering youth. There is a distinct tongue in cheek feel to their scenes and dance numbers. Director Emma Jane Richards has chosen to dispense with the tradition of having a female actor playing the leading man so both prince Charming and Dandini are played by male actors. Only the Dames remain in that traditional comedy role.    

The lynch pin of Cinderella is of course Buttons and Joe Robson does a sterling job of keeping the audience engaged and joining up the dots in the story. On Saturday he gave a mammoth performance clearly struggling with a seasonal bug, and had almost no voice by the end of the show. I hope someone had a hot whisky and lemon ready for him in the green room after the show!

Photo credit: Paula Smart

This is a very colourful, visual production, scenery is at a minimum but the costumes and lighting work to give a sumptuous and glamourous feel and the "awwhhh" factor comes with the young ensemble dancers who are beyond cute, and the real, tiny pony pulling the carriage is a lovely touch. It has everything you need for a sparkly Christmas treat for the family.

Cinderella plays until 16th December and booking midweek is recommended - the weekend shows are already sold out!

Denise Sparrowhawk

Beauty and the Beast - Westovians Pier Pavilion - Review

Beauty and the Beast

Westovians at the Pier Pavilion
Jan 15th 2017

Eleven o'clock on a Sunday morning feels like a strange time to be coming to the theatre. And since for most people the Festive Season has been well and truly over for a good week at least, it feels even stranger to be coming to a Panto. We are all back at work and school with our noses to the grindstone and festive frivolity has been packed away. But not at the Pier Pavilion  in South Shields - here they are just getting started! The Christmas tree is still up in the foyer and the Beauty and the Beast is set and ready to go...Oh yes! It is!

This tale as old as time makes a passing reference to the Disney version (I suppose these days all fairy tales have to, despite the tightly bound performance rights) but it is very much its own tale. Writer Philip Meeks is accomplished at writing pantomimes that draw on the original tales and cock a polite snook at the establishment.

So we have the story of Jolieville, a french town under siege by a hideous monster, and an even more hideous and corrupt Mayoress. In the town there is a beautiful girl - Belle (french for beautiful) and of course she is beautiful inside and out as true heroines in Panto always are. Only she is able to see the good inside the Beast and she sets out to prove that he is not all bad and to save him from the curse he is under. She is aided and hindered in this endeavour by various comic characters - from her father the inept Professor Baguette to friends Bertie and his mother Dame Fifi Latrine. Naturally there are many hilarious puns and word plays derived from their ludicrous panto names, and a healthy mix of fart and pee jokes for the kids and smutty innuendo for the adults. There is magic that has gone wrong, a terrible curse that must be broken and an evil sorceress who must be vanquished before everyone can live happily ever after ( hope that hasn't spoilt the ending for you all - if you've not been to a panto before you may not realise that there is always a happy ever after - that is the whole point). There also always has to be a parade of increasingly bizarre frocks for the dame, a custard pie or two in the face, and lots of booing, hissing and screaming from the audience. Am happy to report that this panto has all of the above in shed-loads.

The cast execute the whole thing well - keeping the audience engaged against all the odds at times, battling against the noise of rustling sweet wrappers and fractious toddlers, to sing dance and joke their way through the plot. David Foster as Diablo and Erin Atack as Mme Bon Bon keep the story straight so the audience know that the Beast (Ty Roach) and Belle (Ashley Mitchell) are following the plan. Craig Richardson and Stephen Sullivan are the stars of the show as Bertie and Fifi Latrine, keeping the audience involved with jokes and banter throughout. In fact I think all pantos should introduce a karejoke contest from now on. The baddies of the show are Gary Manson and Annie Cairns as Claude and Camilla Parker-Bike and they are suitably booed as their nefarious deeds unfurl. That said, the high spot of the show for me has to be Mme Fifi's duet with Professor Baguette (Mark Lamb)- you just can't fight a feeling like that and you probably shouldn't try.

Staged traditionally in January to avoid competition with other theatres in the area - perhaps most notably the Customs House just down the road - the Westovians timing is a piece of genius. Nothing lifts your spirits so well as a room full of kids (and adults) screaming "he's behind you!" at a stage sporting a man dressed as a woman with a preposterous outfit and a huge hairy monster (now, now you smuttmeisters! What did you think I was going to say?). So if you are labouring under new year blues nip along to Shields for a couple of hours of belated festive fun.

Beauty and the Beast plays until Sat 21st Jan. Tickets can be bought from the box office tel 0191 456 0980. You could do worse than buy a ticket for this (seriously, it's worth it just to see the duet!)

Denise Sparrowhawk