Hello boys and girls
I went to see the pantomime in Oxford last night with several friends from the Development Office.
It was Peter Duncan(of Blue Peter and Chief Scout fame)'s third effort as writer/director. Unfortunately, this year it was not such a great effort.
The pantomime was Sleeping Beauty, which is always a bit of a nightmare to begin with, because most of the cast are asleep for the entire second half! Mr Duncan, however, to my mind had made one other major error. He had written the Good Fairy as a Dame. Pantomime dames are not designed to be the good influence in the show - they are meant to be mischevious and funny. Having the Dame come on and call us "Twinklytoos" was just plain irritating!
Unfortunately, Fairygate also meant we were left with the King and Queen as the comedy duo, rather than dame and idiot, which just doesn't work when they're supposed to be authority figures. (Oh, except for the comedy ghost chase scene, which was the Dame, the Well-Meaning Idiot and the Handsome Prince - weird.)
Added to that the (nearly) 18 year old Sleeping Beauty was playing to an age of about 8, seemed unable to stand up straight except when necessary for dance moves, and couldn't really sing.
Other than that, it was a perfectly acceptable show. The pratfalling of the well-meaning idiot was really very good - he must have worked long and hard on it. And clearly much of the cast was very talented, they just didn't have the opportunity to show that off whilst being "asleep" in Act 2.
For an audience participation song towards the end of the first half, they gave us party squeakers. This proved to be an error in the second half, when squeakers were duly blown at all sorts of moments. Up on the balcony, we grown up and appropriate types used them instead of booing the evil witch (very useful for saving one's lungs). Some bright spark piped up with his/hers just at the pivotal moment of the first kiss, which I thought was one of the funniest bits of the entire show!
That, and the aforementioned song. They did "I am the Music Man" and all came on "playing" (they weren't miming, but it was in now way melodic, so I refuse to allow them the dignity of being said to play. Though it was quite funny), so points for that. Then they gestured to "Uncle Darren", the MD, whose verse ran "I am the Musical Director, I come from down your way, and I can ACTUALLY play...". It may not scan, but it got a resounding round of applause from those of us who'd had our fingers in our ears up until that point.
Despite all that, the short comings were obvious, and I couldn't help feeling a little disappointed. Aladdin last year was simply superb and it's a real shame that this one didn't live up to this potential. Still, there's always next year.
It was Peter Duncan(of Blue Peter and Chief Scout fame)'s third effort as writer/director. Unfortunately, this year it was not such a great effort.
The pantomime was Sleeping Beauty, which is always a bit of a nightmare to begin with, because most of the cast are asleep for the entire second half! Mr Duncan, however, to my mind had made one other major error. He had written the Good Fairy as a Dame. Pantomime dames are not designed to be the good influence in the show - they are meant to be mischevious and funny. Having the Dame come on and call us "Twinklytoos" was just plain irritating!
Unfortunately, Fairygate also meant we were left with the King and Queen as the comedy duo, rather than dame and idiot, which just doesn't work when they're supposed to be authority figures. (Oh, except for the comedy ghost chase scene, which was the Dame, the Well-Meaning Idiot and the Handsome Prince - weird.)
Added to that the (nearly) 18 year old Sleeping Beauty was playing to an age of about 8, seemed unable to stand up straight except when necessary for dance moves, and couldn't really sing.
Other than that, it was a perfectly acceptable show. The pratfalling of the well-meaning idiot was really very good - he must have worked long and hard on it. And clearly much of the cast was very talented, they just didn't have the opportunity to show that off whilst being "asleep" in Act 2.
For an audience participation song towards the end of the first half, they gave us party squeakers. This proved to be an error in the second half, when squeakers were duly blown at all sorts of moments. Up on the balcony, we grown up and appropriate types used them instead of booing the evil witch (very useful for saving one's lungs). Some bright spark piped up with his/hers just at the pivotal moment of the first kiss, which I thought was one of the funniest bits of the entire show!
That, and the aforementioned song. They did "I am the Music Man" and all came on "playing" (they weren't miming, but it was in now way melodic, so I refuse to allow them the dignity of being said to play. Though it was quite funny), so points for that. Then they gestured to "Uncle Darren", the MD, whose verse ran "I am the Musical Director, I come from down your way, and I can ACTUALLY play...". It may not scan, but it got a resounding round of applause from those of us who'd had our fingers in our ears up until that point.
Despite all that, the short comings were obvious, and I couldn't help feeling a little disappointed. Aladdin last year was simply superb and it's a real shame that this one didn't live up to this potential. Still, there's always next year.