Festival Theatre, Malvern – until 5th January 2025
Reviewed by Courie Amado Juneau
4****
Panto season returns to Malvern tonight – and this year’s show, Sleeping Beauty, has a lot to live up to following last year’s sparkling Cinderella.
The opening number showed one of the great strengths of the production – with our titular lady in fine voice and the ensemble dancers showing fine form. Then there’s Carabosse’s opening aria (and it was an aria) giving us Jordan Lee Davies amazing voice. He was also appearing to relish the dark side of the hissable lead – with a really enjoyable maniacal laugh in place. In many ways, like Batman’s universe, it’s the quality of the villain that propels the story and tonight we had a strong showing.
Princess Rose, played by Ellie Dadd, headed the cast and gave us a charming leading lady. A lovely voice and fine dancing were the surprise. What wasn’t a surprise was the quality of her acting – with her years in Eastenders standing her in good stead. Her leading man, Prince Vincent (Alexander Emery), was her equal in charm and they made a handsome, believable couple. I enjoyed his bringing in many elements from other sources – principally Monty Python’s Holy Grail’s horses (those in the know will get a warm glow from this).
Mark James returns to the Pantoverse as Chester the Jester. Always a joy and very funny. He was another of the undoubted highlights and his catchphrase “where’s my mates?” was easy to answer – such a likable presence had mates throughout the auditorium.
The rest of the cast were superb too – The King (Mark Llewelyn Evans) had a magnificent voice, Fairy Snowfall (Shani Cantor) delivery was spot on and Nanny Nora (Phillip Arran) had as fine a line in double entendre’s as she did her wardrobe… Wonderful one and all.
The costumes were sumptuous, the sets grand enough to evoke all the regal kingdom spaces necessary and the orchestra sounded much more expansive than the modest forces of just 3 musicians! A fabulous spectacle was put on – and adding much towards that was the front screen projection special effects which were genuinely very impressive. I particularly loved the Superman inspired flying scene/travels through time, which warmed my heart greatly – so kudos to the production team and the actor performing that (I won’t give spoilers).
If I were to have one slight criticism I would say that the script takes a while (perhaps necessarily) to lay out the narrative and get to the rip roaring jokes. When they arrive they are typical of the genre and mostly fairly well telegraphed so for me the greatest pleasure was in the cast ad-libs and the bits that look like they’ve gone slightly wrong. I hope that as the show beds in for its run it doesn’t lose this spontaneity.
A very good show that will appeal to young in years as well as the young at heart. It’s Panto; so you know what you’re getting. If you love Panto you will love this one. Once again Malvern Theatre excels and I’m sure that tickets will sell like hot cakes so I’d encourage everyone to get in quick!