SLEEPING BEAUTY: Palace Theatre Mansfield till 4 January.
Mansfield.
SLEEPING BEAUTY.
Palace Theatre: Tkts 01623 633133 palacetheatre@mansfield.gov.uk.
Runs: 2h 30m: one interval: till 4th Jan.
Performance times: 10am some days, 2pm most days, 7.00pm most days, 12pm and 4pm Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. No performances on Suns, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.
Signed Performances: 12th Dec 7pm and 13th Dec 2pm.
Review: Alan Geary: 2 December 2008.
Mansfield’s best panto for at least four years, which is saying a lot.
This is the best panto at Mansfield’s Palace Theatre for at least four years, which is saying a lot. All right, the jokes - always funny - are sometimes the tiniest bit over-lavatorial. And at times the script’s so stiff with shameless advertising it would fall apart without it, but it’s splendid all the same.
Nobody hogs an evening of fun, spectacle, glamour, and magic: every performer plays a strong character and contributes something special.
Highlights include the Good Fairy (Malandra Burrows)/ Bad Fairy (Natalie Cleverley) duet, the bits when Gregor Stewart’s Prince flies through space and later slays a dragon and the mirror routine from Dame Nelly (a brilliant Douglas Mounce) and Silly Billy (Mike Fischetti) - it’s interesting to see an American playing Billy. Tom Owen gives us a very dim, very funny and very Yorkshire-type King.
Happily, there’s no mention of the credit crunch. In fact there’s almost no topical humour, but Bolsover and Shirebrook take some stick. Judging from this panto, the Mansfield area seems to take a perverse pride in perceiving itself as chav territory.
When the baby’s wheeled on in her cot we get a lot of flatulence gags. Childish they might be, but they’re funny. The most cracking joke - sorry - comes when Billy throws an egg into the audience and says “The yoke’s on him!”.
For men in their prime the best bit is the Bad Fairy’s very leggy and evil song and dance routine with her henchmen. In fact, there’s a slightly unseemly but nonetheless welcome confusion between comic skulduggery and sexiness whenever the Bad Fairy appears.
Costumes - Stephanie McWilliams in the title role looks beautiful in all her frocks - are outstanding. So are scenery and special effects.
You get a free shower when Silly Billy and Dame Nelly are let loose into the stalls with water pistols, and if you’re in the posh seats you get sweets thrown your way. It would have been better if they’d been thrown singly instead of in bags but presumably it’s a question of product placement.
Good Fairy: Malandra Burrows.
Bad Fairy: Natalie Cleverley.
Sleeping Beauty: Stephanie McWilliams.
Silly Billy: Mike Fischetti.
King: Tom Owen.
Prince: Gregor Stewart.
Dame: Douglas Mount.
Villagers: Kate Hallam, Heather Parkin, Alice Kurylo, Kirstie Layton, Michael J Porter, Ben Russell.
Village Children from The Academy of Dance and The Sarah Adamson School of Dancing.
Director: Terry Morrison.
Lighting Designer: Dai Evans.
Choreographer: Tracey Iliffe.
Musical Director: Martyn St James.
2008-12-05 09:28:09