REVIEW
BY RODNEY PEARSON: One of my earliest theatre-going memories was
a school trip to the Century theatre in Keswick to see “Wind
in the Sassafras Trees”, a rip-roaring farce set in the Wild West,
complete with every western movie cliché known to a fan of the
genre. I recall being helpless with laughter and in seventh heaven. I
was reminded of this when watching “A Little Panto on the Prairie”,
CDS’ early entry to the panto season, performed before a packed
house clearly enjoying the on-stage antics of a large, enthusiastic
cast giving it their all.
A hybrid of ”The Beverly Hillbillies”, “Calamity Jane” and
“Oklahoma” or so it seemed to me, the show was crammed with
traditional stock characters, cheesy jokes and topical swipes, all
the more successful and fun to watch by reason of the freshness of
the setting and not one of the better known “classic” pantos. It
was clear from Jon Constant’s warm up that the audience was in the
mood to have a good time and Ellen Fermie as Grandma, a dead ringer
for Granny Clampett, duly delivered a strong introduction drawing
everyone into the action and later holding the narrative together.
This was followed by that most groanworthy of C&W songs "Achy
Breaky Heart" but delivered with musical aplomb by the
five-piece band led by Derek Huff and Peter Whitehead with line
dancing chorus in a colourful saloon setting.
There followed the usual pattern of meeting the principal
characters with Iain Watson as the suitably simple but warm-hearted
village idiot, Frank Spencer…sorry Tumbleweed; Sam Helen in a riot
of colour as Madame Moonshine, the panto Dame; Jo Stacey, as love
interest Sandy (aka Elly May); Robert Edenborough as evil Sherriff
Cactus Jack, filtering Gene Hackman from "Unforgiven", with
his Mexican henchmen Jose & Jose B, played with
moustachioed relish by Juliet Bagnall and Jeff Peters. Later we
met Principal Boy Susanne Tunnicliff as Buck the Cowboy, whose name
in a running joke engendered much hilarity, his coconut clapping
companion Silent Bob played by Greg Morton recycling Patsy from
"Monty Python & the Holy Grail", Liz Ness as the
wonderfully off the wall Fairy Saddle-Sore and Steve Infield as the
grammatically stunted Indian Chief. Last but not least we had
Ellen Wall, who scenes stole the show as a surreal rabbit who thought
it was a hare……or was it the other way around! A round of
applause greeted her every appearance. The cast of principals
was complemented by an excellent chorus in smaller roles and crowd
scenes, together with the happy, smiley faces of a young dance group
from Impact Dance Studio bringing great energy to the opening number
and "YMCA" at the start of Act 2.
Community panto wouldn’t be panto without mistakes and
longueurs. It is more a matter of how the cast rises to the occasion,
which they demonstrably did. It is worth mentioning though that pace
can be improved by crisp entrances - one late entrance was turned to
an advantage - speaking while crossing the stage rather than waiting
to hit the mark, not throwing away lines (always come up with
the voice at the end of a line) and not being hesitant over
cues. Fast line runs in the latter stages of rehearsals help. And
it was a pity there were technical issues with the image projection
as this would have given depth to the design of various scenes, as
the white rear wall was clearly intended for this purpose.
Fortunately, the large and colourfully dressed cast (costumes by
Margaret Wrightson and her team were super) generated a great deal of
"business", which didn’t leave the stage bare. Scene
changes were kept short and well-engineered in front of half tabs.
However, the lighting design and effects such as in the "Dream
sequence" were uneven.
A couple of observational points. Be careful when lighting actors
who are wearing hats, as these can obscure their faces. There were a
few times when they were in shadow. Also, panto is timeless, which is
part of its charm. However, times change and what was acceptable in
the past has increasingly and rightly become less so. Be careful
therefore at discriminatory or gender-based jokes, perhaps included
in a script written some while ago, that may generate a cheap laugh
but which may also cause offence. Politicians though are fair
game, so long as no one is left out! And a word for Sam Helen as
an excellent Madame Moonshine around whom, literally, most of the
action revolves. My understanding is that this was his first time as
a Panto Dame, in which case he has a great future. My note about
losing the ends of lines applies, try not to shuffle and do "cheat"
at facing forward to deliver lines to the front rather than in
profile. However, if I had a disappointment it was only that Madame
Moonshine wore just the one frock. I’d have loved to have seen her
in an equally outrageous outfit (perhaps riding gear) in the second
half.
Several scenes stood out such as Fairy Saddle-Sore’s entrance
climbing out of the well, the hobby horse ride in the desert, timing
of the "Nuts" joke, the Star Trek "Beam me up"
sequence and a genuinely moving "Endless Love" duet between
Sandy and Buck. In fact, congratulations to all the cast for putting
over the well-chosen songs with brio and to the costumed band for
their dextrous musical accompaniment. The inventiveness of Sue
Wall’s clever and witty direction was there to see. If there were
areas which could have been worked on, this must be set against the
amount of rehearsal time available and the sheer logistical nightmare
of mounting a large scale and technically challenging panto in the
shared environment of a multi occupied village hall. A final
word of appreciation must go to the backstage and technical teams as
well as the Front of House staff for making the evening go with a
swing. On behalf of the audience, thank you Claygate Dramatic
Society for a super evening.
