HANSEL & GRETEL. To 17 January.
London.
HANSEL & GRETEL
by Hope Massiah music by Darren Benjamin, Kuljit Bhamra, Excalibah, Robert Hyman, Perry Melius, Wayne Nunes.
Theatre Royal Stratford East Gerry Raffles Square E15 1BN To 17 January 2009.
10am & 1.45pm 6-8; 13-14 Jan.
1.45pm & 6pm 10, 17 Jan.
1.45pm & 7pm 9, 15-16 Jan.
Runs 2hr 20min One interval.
TICKETS: 020 8534 0310.
www.stratfordeast.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 3 January.
Colourful, high-energy pantomime.
Oh yes it is a panto. But, oh no other theatre could produce anything like the atmosphere of a Stratford East show. Hope Massiah returns with a script packed with messages about the dangers children face and the way they should live together. But only occasionally do the good intentions obtrude through the loud, bright entertainment on offer.
A friendly Mole warms things up with a pre-show singalong, though thereafter Massiah never really gives Susan Lawson-Reynolds’ friendly Monty much part in the story. Victorian melodrama is suggested as friendly-seeming landlord Squire Giles shows how contracts can be used to cheat and exploit the poor and naive.
Giles’ daughter Arabella has clearly learned that masculine manners and values are the way to deal with father. Her sudden (unseen) transformation to a mouse no-one, her father included, can understand and the way he sweeps this mouse aside as he searches for Arabella, helps her grow in understanding about how to treat people.
Massiah sets the biggest problem for Marcus Powell as the Dame. The role becomes that of stepmother, a well-known Hansel baddie. As she appears some time before Josephine Lloyd-Welcome’s wrinkled Witch, actual villain of the piece (with her servant Wolf, whose initial tendency towards being the nice-really sidekick soon evaporates), it takes some sidestepping in the script and comedy in the performance to keep Stepmother sufficiently sympathetic.
So, her motivation switches to generalised dislike and distrust of teenagers, doubtless based on fearing them. The idea of abandoning them in the forest is made ambiguous (she’d as soon send them back to the city to work). And Marcus Powell’s Damehood is assured, with a gallery of pouts, vocal pitches launched momentarily into the stratosphere and knowing looks at the audience.
Drawing on composers from the theatre’s Musical Theatre Workshop to give a strong spread of varied songs, and highly-coloured by Jenny Tiramani’s striking sets and costumes – lit by upward shafts of Zerlina Hughes’ lighting, the tall trees that start shaking in the night-storm are fearfully impressive – and with Peter Howe’s greedy-guts Yellow Bird providing humour, this is the usual E15 delight.
Wolf/Alarm: Nathan Amzi.
Gretel: Natalie Best.
Squire Giles: Marcus Cunningham.
Hansel: Darren Hart.
Yellow Bird: Peter Howe.
Monty Mole: Susan Lawson-Reynolds.
Wicked Witch: Josephine Lloyd-Welcome.
Stepmother: Marcus Powell.
Arabella: Gemma Salter.
Father: Tony Timberlake.
with Chris Canal, Sannchia Gaston.
Director: Dawn Reid.
Designer/Costume: Jenny Tiramani.
Lighting: Zerlina Hughes.
Sound: James Tebb for Thames Audio.
Musical Director: Robert Hyman.
Choreographer: Omar Okai.
Illusionist: Paul Kieve.
Assistant director: Abdul Shayek.
2009-01-05 09:11:32