REVIEW: Sleeping Beauty – Malvern Theatres (December 12 to January 5).
Showtime! stars rating: * * * * *
IT might not be all that numerically close to that fabled 100 years spent sleeping, but Mark James nevertheless has plenty of reasons to celebrate this festive season.
Mark is billed – as if there was anyone for miles around who didn’t know – as Malvern’s favourite funny man. And there can certainly be no doubt about that particular claim to fame, because he never fails to deliver the comic goods.
This year, he’s playing the part of Chester the Jester, and it’s no wonder that he acts as if he’s in a seventh heaven. For it’s seven consecutive years since he first delighted Worcestershire audiences with his onstage antics, knockabout comedy, and a relentless repartee that has the audiences kept in stitches.
Make no mistake, Mark is the comic glue that holds the Malvern panto together.
But there again, the daily capacity crowds at the theatre are indeed spoiled for riches so great that they make the legendary Three Kings look like paupers searching for the nearest food bank, rather than a certain manger sat under an exceedingly bright star in the east.
Ellie Dadd enchants as Princess Rose, and Alexander Emery’s portrayal of Prince Vincent is a veritable portrait in oils, far too handsome for his tights.
Now, by that I’m not implying that he’s all that greasy, but let’s just say he gets a bit close to the residue at the bottom of the chip pan on occasion.
But hey - this is only what we all expect, and he most surely delivers the required goods by the spatula-load. Oh yes, by jove, if that crown fits, then pray wear it, your royal smoothness.
Jordan Lee Davies makes for a good Carabosse, although that’s a contradiction in terms, for this character’s blacker than the black hole of Calcutta, a vision of unloveliness that fascinates and repels with equal measure.
And I must confess that I couldn’t stop staring at her headgear, which reminded me of a large black slug slithering, with horns prone, across the garden lawn after a summer shower.
The Good Fairy, meanwhile, is purity personified, the champion of all who must face the forces of ill intent. In this case, of course, the problem is the old aforementioned slug bonce, who soon becomes about as popular with the crowds as Rachel Reeves dropping unannounced into a pensioners’ Christmas winter fuel fund-raiser.
Shani Cantor does the role proud, incidentally possessing a fine singing voice that is only eclipsed by Welsh baritone Mark Llewelyn Evans, whose voice comes belting out of the valleys, crossing the Severn bridge at Chepstow, and finally comes barrelling into Malvern to ring the rafters of the Festival Theatre.
Not to be outdone in the laughter stakes is Phillip Arran as Nanny Nora, who seems to have even more costume-changes than Imelda Marcos had shoe-changes, not that many people will remember that one.
Throughout, the Ensemble dancers power the proceedings along, ably aided by The Cecilia Hall Dance Centre children, all of whom enjoy fabulous backing by a band led by keyboard king Tom Self.
Show director Paul Boyd will justifiably feel proud is this season’s production at Malvern, and all bodes well for the rest of the run. So my advice is - don’t delay, get your tickets today.
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