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Show: Beauty and the Beast
Society: New Theatre
Venue: New Theatre Cardiff
Credits: Presented by New Theatre Cardiff
Type: Sardines
Performance Date: 14/12/2018
Beauty and the Beast
Paul Johnson | 16 Dec 2018 15:36pm
⭐⭐⭐
This was my first time seeing the Qdos version of Beauty and the Beast. As someone who sees a lot of pantomimes this put me in the novel position of not knowing the plot – or at least the sub-plots – in advance. The rise of the title as a pantomime is linked to the success of the Disney version of course, but the challenge for writers Alan McHugh and Jonathan Kiley is to expand the bare bones of the traditional story without infringing the Disney copyright.
As a result, this is not a pantomime where there can be any complaints about the plot disappearing; there was a lot to follow and I’m not sure I could accurately retell the details as far as some of the characters are concerned. This is also a panto with, unusually, six leads rather than one or two – perhaps leading to some minor characters having their role enhanced? The setting is moved from France to Wales, which is fair enough, but it’s certainly an unusual version of Beauty and the Beast that includes characters called Calvin Kipling and Clarence Bridge, let alone a random personal trainer called Alfie…
At the centre of the tale, however, are a couple of good performances from Naomi Slights as Belle and Ben Richards as the Prince/Beast. They have very little to do, especially musical theatre regular Ben Richards, but they do it very well. Also at home in his role is local comic Mike Doyle, a regular in the Dame role at Cardiff. It’s a traditional take on the role and Doyle knows exactly what he is doing. Less sure of his role is Edward Rowe as Calvin Kipling, lead comic and feed to the Dame who could do well to up the pace to match Doyle’s delivery and give him the support he needs.
Clarence Bridge, another unfamiliar character name, is played by Danny Bayne in an impressive performance despite the material he has been given. In the first half he is cast as a kind of counterpart for Alfie, a role played by rugby hero Gareth Thomas. Thomas sometimes looks uncomfortable in the role and has almost nothing to do, but does it good-naturedly – and if he is bringing the audience in, then all to the good I suppose. Since he is also something of an LGBT icon, it seemed odd to have him flirting with the Dame; in the gender-fluid world of pantomime today such misdirection is unnecessary.
In the second half the excellent Danny Bayne’s character becomes a sidekick for the villain and despite this rather bewildering character trajectory, Bayne manages to make something of the part and is always watchable. As the embodiment of Evil, Stephanie Webber steps up from Snow White last year to play Deadly Nightshade, a role with rather more acting challenges perhaps and one she is more than up to. However, if you have an impressive prop rose which drops petals at suitable moments, it would be best if Deadly Nightshade was not standing in front of it at the time.
There is no good fairy but Lisa Riley as Mrs Potts gives the standout performance in the show and holds it all together, even giving the local audience a final greeting in Welsh. Her character is the only one to use a name from the Disney film – but although she is still the Beast’s housekeeper, she is not a teapot. In fact, most of the time she cheerfully trades off her Emmerdale character name and her appearance in Strictly Come Dancing – but she does so with great energy and commitment.
Not a wholly successful show then despite the usual hard work from cast, ensemble and babes. We got the Baby Shark song of course as in every other panto I have seen this year, and the highlight as ever was the group of children who came on stage to sing – although I wasn’t the only audience member to wonder if it was really a tasteful idea to trick them into singing the “felt smart/smelt fart” tongue twister song. It’s (maybe) OK to trick an audience sitting in the dark into singing that, but getting small children on stage and then watching their embarrassment is something else – although it has to be said that all four on this occasion seemed perfectly happy with the experience.
It was good to note that with six names above the title, the show still came in at around two hours, even with all that plot to get through. Despite some over-reliance on fart jokes and similar, the skill and experience of most of the cast rose above the material and provided an enjoyable experience for the many children in the audience. The show looked good and the ever-reliable Twins FX produced a suitably evil and impressive Kraken to hover over the stalls at the end of the first half.
- : admin
- : 14/12/2018