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Show: Sleeping Beauty
Society: Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch
Venue: Queen's Theatre Hornchurch. Billet Lane, Hornchurch, Essex RM11 1QT
Credits: by Andrew Pollard. Original music and lyrics by Tom Self, A Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch pantomime.
Type: Sardines
Author: Michael Gray
Performance Date: 26/11/2022
Sleeping Beauty
Michael Gray | 28 Nov 2022 22:31pm
L-R Anna Fordham, Alex Tomkins & Jerome Lincoln. Image: Mark Sepple
A packed auditorium, families out in their festive finery, wands, windmills and weapons glowing and flashing.
A real family panto, this Sleeping Beauty, with something for all ages: very few light blue jokes, popular music of all kinds, specially written for this show by Tom Self, superbly played and sung by the eight multi-instrumentalists in the cast, slapstick, local name-checks and the traditional tale clearly told, but with so many clever twists and tweaks. We’re transported from vaguely Tudor times to the brave new world of 2057, with Dora Schweitzer’s colourful designs conjuring up a tasteful party scene at the end, as well as a spooky forest and a dark Bond-style lair for the villain.
The youthful, energetic cast brings pace and sparkle to Andrew Pollard’s witty script.
Anna Fordham is a plucky Princess Raury [christened Aurora on that Fateful Day…] Gamine and gung-ho, she prefers football and mycology to dutiful domesticity, she has a written consent-to-kiss form over her bed, and saves the day like a superhero, channelling girl power in her big number in Act Two. A refreshingly up-to-date characterization.
Her prince – a woodcutter’s son from Romford – is Jerome Lincoln, not short of bashful charm, if slightly underpowered by comparison. He is, it transpires, a were-wolf. The Bad Fairy – pyrotechnics stage left – is Vampire Vanity; these gothic twists are well developed, though I believe Matthew Bourne got there first.
There are impressive comedy performances from Alex Tomkins as King ‘enery the Heighth of ‘Ornchurch, the lovable sexist dinosaur, West Ham fan, party animal and “former understudy at the RSC”. And from Dominic Gee-Burch as [not your granny] Super Nanny, giving us an exemplary Dame, with a virtuosic list of jobs she’s lost, a volley of savoury snack jokes and “Motherly”, a marvellous music hall number.
The clever opening has the Good Fairy [Laura Sillet’s Sloaney Falalala-la-la-la-la-laa] delivering her welcome speech to the backcloth in an inspired “We’re behind you!” moment; her opposite number, evil, bloodthirsty and much less posh, is Hannah Woodward.
Much of the heavy lifting musically is done by the brokers’ men – Prim and Proppa, Marta Miranda and Ben Barrow, gamely playing on even when disguised as robots [don’t ask…]
For every old-fashioned ballad or patter number there’s something bang up-to-date, like the Tik Tok Dance, gleefully greeted by the youngsters in the audience. Some of the good old seasonal staples you’ll find on every other panto stage: the song sheet, the guest list [Roy celebrating his 70th], the ancient gags [“long felt want”, anyone?], the victim in the front stalls. But you’ll be lucky to see another six-foot sausage [Yakety Sax the only possible accompaniment] or a spindle inside a giant birthday cake, or a vintage video game for the battle. Or a Burping Blue Danube …
Director Caroline Leslie says she wants the first-time theatre goers, who shriek with glee at the jokes, boo the Bad Fairy, and yell unheeded warnings about that spindle, to develop a life-long love of the theatre. Well, it worked for me. And without the pantomime profits, many of our regional theatres would find it hard to fund their work for the rest of the year. If you can’t support the Queen’s, then do make the effort to join in the fun playing on your own local fairy tale stage.