Box River News Review
Joe Barrett proved to be a barrel of laughs as the villainous Hook’s shipmate, ‘Sweetheart’ whilst trying to keep everyone ship-shape and sea worthy! Camping it up as only Joe can do, he set the scene that was going to prove to be one of the best panto’s yet.
David Phillips as the aforementioned villainous ‘Capt Hook’ was born or should I say ‘built’ for the part. Sporting a magnificent black beard and in a resplendent captain’s uniform he must have presented a frightening character for some of the younger members of the audience who attended on Wednesdays first night, or was theirs an expurgated version??.
The Plot!!!! I have been having some problems actually working out what the plot was. We did not have a Peter Pan or a Tinkerbell, these being replaced by ‘Fairy Tail’, a rather larger and aged version of the original fairy, played by Margaret Clapp who was word perfect with the longest speech of the panto, and a somewhat older relative of Peter called ‘Marci Pan’ played by Coralie Marshall who mysteriously floated around the crows nest without any wires!!
Well here goes. Sweetheart recruits a new crew for a short voyage. The crew contains two thigh slapping principle boys, Charming Magoo (Georgie Watson) and Hugh Pugh (Cheryl Johnson) Magoo is searching for a magic necklace and if found the secret password will give you all the riches you wish for. Eventually the necklace is found and the villainous Hook grabs it and upon saying the secret password is instantly gobbled up by Tic Tock the crocodile. Did I get that right Bill? sorry I was enjoying myself too much to be able to follow it.
I still can not quite work out how the romance worked into the plot resulting in the traditional last act marriage?
With a cast of thousands it is difficult to pick anyone out for special praise so I won’t, except, Derek (I can’t remember my lines) Butler who let me down by being word perfect.
A special word however for the musical direction. This was probably the best yet but having only seen 17 panto’s I can not confirm it. Gareth Price and Ward Baker did a brilliant job, almost as if Gareth Malone had been in charge! and how could I possibly forget the great performance of Hannah Murphy who played Crustation, one of the fish wives
As always a great feast during the interval prepared by the now famous Di and Jan and their team.
Last but not least, Bill Horne the author and one half of the talented Horne duo, who has come up trumps once again. Watch this space for the new season of
Boxford Drama Group productions.