Performance of the Year Sleeping Beauty

Sleeping beauty was performed in Malvern theatre on the 30^th of December 2010.This fantastic fairy tale was upheld by strong stock characters such as the original good and bad characters being the ‘good fairy’ and the ‘bad fairy’ these were played professionally by Toyah Wilcox and Wendy Purdy. These two characters were the main story tellers with elaborate costumes and many pieces of song and dance which you just wanted to sing along with!

 This was an enchanting fairy tale which stood out from other pantomimes for me by using lots of modern musical songs which lightened the pantomime, and were enjoyed by the audience of which especially of younger generation of which there were many, who all gave great roars of ‘ oh no he didn’t’ ‘ oh ye he did’. The character ‘Silly Billy’s’ interaction with the children was great entertainment. He was a traditional comic character which made each child laugh, along with ‘nanny glucose’ which was the again traditional lady in drag who both decided to soak the audience with water pistols which I was lucky enough to miss! Nanny glucose’s humour related more to the adults as ‘Silly Billy’s’ concentrated on the interaction with the children. He brought up children on stage and he had the audience singing in sections as a light humoured competition to see which was the loudest, this type of fun interaction with the audience kept us entertained and created a great Christmas family experience. Something which I had not experienced in a traditional pantomime before such as sleeping beauty was a screen which made many special effects such as the prince going back in time and defeating the dragon.  For me this part was the only small downfall to the play as it could be said to have been not well rehearsed as when the prince would swing for the dragon he would be far away from him, but as most of the audience was of a younger generation this did not disrupt the effect they were trying to make. Although by using the special effects in the pantomime I found it did create a magical atmosphere as it was unreal, big and colourful on the screen. I would watch sleeping beauty again and again as it was so enjoyable and entertaining a good family experience that everyone can enjoy!