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The wonderful theatre at The Grange School in Hartford is once again filled with the fun of the festive season as KD Theatre Productions present their annual pantomime here... oh yes they do!
This year it is the tale of Sleeping Beauty which gets the panto treatment, and with a cast of only 6 (not including the dancers) one might have thought that the stage and overall effect might have been a little empty, but not at all... the characters are of course, larger than life, and the team of dancers fill the stage at every opportunity...as well as the odd appearance of a dinosaur or other monster too!
This is a colourful, upbeat, and very traditional panto with plenty of the reponses and routines which we all love and the target audience engages fully with. There's an evil baddie that we all love to boo, Carabosse (Mollie Kate Angus), there's the rather potty Dame, Nurse Nora (Joe Docherty), the handsome Prince (Jake Hankey), the damsel in distress, Princess Aurora (Lucy Brindle), the put-upon and somewhat hapless father King Key - no-one got that joke! - (Alan Booth), and of course the 'Buttons' character who does the most interaction with the audience, Presto the Jester (Charles Michael Duke).
The routines are fun, the jokes are fast and furious.... many with contemporary and / or local references, with just a few, extremely well-placed naughty ones for the adults. These were delivered with such skill that they were almost unrecognisable as jokes at all and went over the children's heads completely. Perfect.
Some companies want to try and reinvent the wheel, some companies simply have no idea what a panto should be about; KD lie in neither category.... they understand completely, and have delivered an engaging and truly family oriented piece of entertainment for the festive season. The singing and dancing were nicely done, ditto the lighting and effects; a superb upbeat end to the first act (The Time Warp), leaving us wanting more, and of course the fairytale happy end in the finale sequence. Colourful costumes, personable and relatable characters, and lots and lots of silliness... what more could anyone ask for?
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 17.12.22
on - 17.12.22
This panto was amazing 👏
ReplyDeleteLoved every minute! One thing I think missed from your review was the technical elements was vastly better than previous years aswell! The Lighting looked amazing and I have to say the sound was like a west end show! Unbelievable behind the scenes effort! Well done all
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