Sam Lord

Rachael Mycock, Daniel Mycock, Richard Bennett, Claire Cooper.

REVIEWED!!!

Players Go For Original Panto – The Watlington Players Trouble in Pantoland, Watlington Village Hall, January 8th 2010

This year’s production from Watlington Players was a traditional presentation with an original story that included many well known characters from other similar productions.

In short, an evil wizard attempts to seize power from a wicked queen by freezing all the heroes of Pantoland (Prince Charming, Aladdin and others) and generally being beastly to everyone else (princesses Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty included).

Luckily, Frog Prince Robert is on hand to save the day and, well, you can guess the rest!

Watlington had most of its best talent out this night and they all worked hard to make the best of what was an overly wordy script, woefully short of good laughs and a little on the long side.

Having taken so much trouble with a cracking set, beautiful costumes and good music, I wondered why director Matt Kerslake had saddled himself (and everyone else) with such a difficult script.

As director, however, he should be pleased with what he accomplished delivering a well-presented and tidy piece of theatre with a good number of excellent performances.

This production benefitted enormously from a really large cast which gave it a grand feel.

Amongst the many good performances I enjoyed especially Kristen Coucill as the Wicked Queen, Steve Brooks as the Wizards and Amy Power as Frog Prince Robert.  There may have been only the one thigh slap but it was a corker!

Megan Abbott was suitably demure as Amelia Sweetheart and Hugh Pearce as Bert Butterfingers had clearly put a lot of effort into his part as comic lead.  Oddly enough some of the biggest laughs came from the minor parts, notably Sandra Johnson as one of the crones who displayed some impressive timing and an excellent delivery causing me to laugh out loud on more than one occasion. 

Similarly the two guards who did not even rate an individual mention in the cast list (so I cannot name them) proved responsible for the funniest section overall as they discussed literature on the battlements.

Music by Kate Mould was delightful as was simple but effective choreography by Amy Kent – most accomplished in the Monster Mash routine.

I like pantomime and although this was not the best I have seen, I was still glad I had come.  If I had to sum up this production, I would say that overall it wasn’t sure of what it was trying to be.

The cast played it straight down the line and yet, as I left the village hall and skated toward the car park, I felt that with so few laughs in the script a less firm hand on the reign might have helped the performers to find their own comedy within the production.

Stephen Hayter