Sometimes you go to the theatre when if you’re honest, you don’t quite feel in the mood. With general life stresses around you to think about, perhaps you’d rather just shut yourself away from the world for a little while. On the other hand this is exactly why the theatre can be such a wonderfully cathartic experience! A step into another dimension where you can simply be enveloped by the atmosphere and ambience of the evening. For this reason I truly enjoyed every second of this year's pantomime ‘Sleeping Beauty’ at Venue Cymru, Llandudno, North Wales on their opening night. A dazzling, delightful and fun-filled experience, where sometimes things didn’t always quite go to plan but which made it all the more endearing to watch and be entertained by. A real magical time to forget your worries and soak up all the fun and frolics.
Venue Cymru’s 2019 production’s main stars are Sherrie Hewson who brings Benidorm Live to the stage playing Nurse Temple Savage. Hewson is a much-loved television personality and actress and the creator of many laughs during this production. Kieran Powell as Muddles, one of the UK’s finest variety acts and world’s top ventriloquists really entertains us with his own special furry friends and Nigel Ellacott as Queen Myfanwy (from Deganwy) who is back again at Venue Cymru and considered one of the country’s top pantomime dames. Ellacott had me belly laughing on more than one occasion and that was before he even spoke! I didn’t know it would be humanly possibly to be a walking picnic basket but Ellacott pulled it off with style and indeed with many of the costume changes and looked amazing! In fact the wardrobe department gets my full five star rating as I think one of the best wardrobes in a pantomime I have ever seen! A very classy affair, with more dazzling delights than I’m sure even the crown jewels have to offer. This lavish and high end production features a fantastically bright and starry set and the Lightning Designer, Rory Beaton has helped make this into the truly magnificent pantomime it is with spectacular lighting effects.
The story of Sleeping Beauty is one we all know and love, a bad witch curses a princess that she will die on her 16th birthday, but a fairy alters the curse so that the princess will go into a deep sleep and can only be awakened by a prince's magical kiss. In this production we have a very, very wicked fairy, namely Carabosse played by the dramatic Jamie Birkett. Birkett brings just the right amount of badness and panto theatricality to this role as the audience booed their merry hearts out every time she entered the stage. Her costume was magnificent and Birkett definitely had a fantastically spooky stage presence. Our ‘knight in shining armour’ Prince Harry was played so sweetly by Adam Baker who swept not only Princess Beauty but the whole audience off their feet. He was charming, young and handsome what more could we want. Baker played him with eloquence and the bravery you’d expect from the perfect prince. Harriet Bunton playing Princess Bunton hit just the right princess note, not too twee or sickly sweet but a natural and believable performance. Everyone warmed to her and her somewhat of a modern edge that she brought to the stage.
The big laughs of this production are brought very much from the presence of Ellacott, Powell and Hewson who, individually used their own comedy skills to connect with the audience and have us laughing out loud. Ellacott entertained us with his bright and loud costumes and perfect comedic timing. His ad-libbing was very quick-witted and everyone loved him/her in the audience, a wonderful and characterful pantomime dame. Ellacott designs and creates all his own pantomime costumes and has up to 14 outrageous outfit changes this season and has designed for pantos all over the country. I can assure you they are utterly amazing, I wanted to jump on that stage and get a proper close up view, with some being very intricate. A superb introduction was made by Powell as court jester Muddles who falls desperately in love with Princess Beauty, however Muddles also brings with him on stage some of his special friends to the great delight of his young (and not so young) audience. The way his puppet friends are brought to life is charming and we all had our eyes especially glued to Dave the Dinosaur, who although cute and cuddly looking, is extremely cheeky and very naughty-humoured at times! Powell brings a great energy and enthusiasm, knows how to warm-up an audience and with some great wise cracks had us very taken with him. A wonderful highlight was bringing an audience member up on to the stage in the form of Chris a firefighter from Anglesea who took on the humour and interaction well. In fact Chris deserves his very own shout out showing us all his best dance moves and he and Muddles actually made a very good little double act.
Powell is exceptional in his role, who is often on the stage and had a warm likeability. Finally Hewson, well I’m not quite sure where to start here. She was beautifully bonkers in her role as Nurse Temple Savage. There were lots of off-script moments where I wasn’t quite sure if things would go off on a completely different, yet still humorous tangent, but Hewson never quite forgot where she was, and always brought us right back into the moment (sometimes with a little help from one or two of her stage friends). I appreciated Hewson's comedy role and she is much more quick-witted than I perhaps had given the tv personality credit for. Zany, fun, and likeable are all traits that sprung out at me. Watching her do her rendition of 'The 12 Days Of Christmas' (along with Powell, Ellacott and Baker) where even she herself would admit although she tried very hard, failed miserably at times to keep up, had the audience in the palm of her hand! Big shout out to Hewson.
Goodness always seems to prevail, even when you have terrifying ‘Rex’ a red-eyed, real-life looking dinosaur to compete with and a whole heap of goodness was delicately thrust upon us when Abiola Efunshile, playing 'Aurora the Enchantress' entered the stage in a puff of smoke! This young Enchantress was extremely watchable and a superb contrast to the Wicked fairy’s bad ways. Efunshile brought a lovely richness and depth to her role and the audience were rooting for her every step of the way. A big shout out also to Pearl Shaw School of Performing Arts, a performing arts school I remember well from my own young drama days performing in and around Colwyn Bay. I was entertained and delighted by the young performers - The Red Team were up for the opening night with a Blue Team that presumably performs on alternative days/nights. Not a step wrong and a natural feel to their dancing, well done girls!
So kudos to Qdos Entertainments for bringing us a wonderful and entertaining production of Sleeping Beauty, a pantomime that delivers and delights its audience both young and old. Sleeping Beauty is on at Venue Cymru until December 29th
Reviewer - Mary Fogg
on - 7/12/19
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