York Grand Opera House – Sat 19 December – Sun 03 January 2016. Reviewed by Marcus Richardson
The York Grand Opera House chose to hold the much loved tale of Jack and the Beanstalk, with faces such as, Russ Spencer as Jack Trott and Caroline Barnes as Princess Jill; this duo came to fame during the 2007 Eurovision contest with their song ‘Flying the Flag’, the couple of singers were unknown to most of the audience but they delivered amazing vocal with great credit to Caroline.
I found the performance overall funny and enjoyable, however at some points I got a bit tired with a simple dialogue, but having children as your target audience is the reason behind this. With most of the audience being children from beavers and brownies the audience were involved with the performance shout as loud as the can to join simple Simon’s gang (Chris Casey), it was clear to see that they’re were enjoying it. They even made it funny to the adults with jokes about the Dame (Stuart Wade). The scene that stood out for me was when they had their own version of the 12 Days of Christmas. Involving 5 toilet rolls and other household items, this scene was absolutely funny and manic with toilet rolls thrown into the audience and all the cast members falling over each other one stage the Fairy Peapod (Jade Ellis) standing watching the hysteria that was happening before her eyes.
One note of Ellis’ performance she sang ‘Listen’ from the musical Dreamgirls, she sang this with absolute perfection and her performance was second to none but it didn’t fit the scene lyrically and had me confused.
Over all I found the performance enjoyable and I would encourage anyone to watch but I solid make sure that you bring your family as it’s a family performance where you can laugh with your children and see their faces light up when they watch the tale that is Jack and the Beanstalk.