SUMMARY
Another entertaining pantomime scripted and directed by Paul Johnson. The plot cleverly merged two well-known folk tales to produce an original and engaging plot around which a rich tapestry of jokes, characters, slapstick and the battle between good and evil was woven. The club certainly engages most effectively and energetically with their audience. Congratulations to the Club and to Paul Johnson.

REPORT
The show opened with Mother Hubbard [Paul Johnson] and Simple Simon [Mark Stannett] singing an amusing opening number in the company of an array of forest and or jungle creatures who popped over or out of the set or from the wings. The audience loved it. In fact the audience loved the whole show with its usual complement of terrible jokes, good jokes, interesting songs, goodies and baddies and most of all audience participation. The story was a clever amalgam of two quite disparate folk tales ‘Robin Hood’ and ‘Babes In The Wood’ together with some other minor additions as was interestingly described in the back of the programme. The Club is fortunate to have the benefit of not only the writing of Paul Johnson but also of his acting and directing skills.

As is ‘de rigour’ for pantos there were two distinct sets of players ‘the goodies’ and the ‘baddies’:

The goodies included a highly attractive Robin Hood [Zoë Andrews] and ‘his’ merry ‘men’ [Stanislaw Pawelek, Ian Pring and Sophie MacWhannell] who I must say were a very amusing ramshackle gang. I particularly enjoyed Ada Halley’s Alan A’Dale. Joining the gang after a brief battle on the bridge was a very handsome Little John played by Samuel Townsend. To provide that extra little bit of help was the good sprite of the forest ‘Lavinia the Lovely’ beautifully played by Clare Pepperell in a quite lovely dress.

The Sheriff of Nottingham of course headed up the baddies. Paul Checkley was clearly at ease as the Sheriff, complete with evil eyebrows and a dastardly swagger. The slapstick baddies, much loved by the kids in the audience, were Leggit & Nickstuff [sorry Nickstuff and Leggit] well played by Amanda Clarke and David Russell. The bad sprite of the forest was Belladonna played to the baddie hilt by Frances Holmes who was also beautifully dressed.

In between the goodies and the baddies were our heroes of the panto Mother Hubbard and Simple Simon. Paul Johnson was as fine a Mother Hubbard as you could wish to see. Mark Stannett brought some well honed acting skills to his part as Simple Simon as well as his ability to connect to the audience in the ‘Oh yes you are’, ‘Oh no you’re not’ routines or his ‘skippety-skip banana’ lines.

The cast clearly enjoyed themselves and were able to convey that spirit of joy to the audience even when they forgot their lines or got lost. The set was particularly good and again the use of luminous paint really did give a 3D effect to the night scenes. The props were excellent particularly Simple Simon’s hat with the arrow effect and the babes were of course amazing. The sound effects used were very good and very amusing when they weren’t quite in sync with the action. The costumes and lighting both added to the evening. The Front Of House team were attentive and well presented as was the catering team.

I thought that your handbill and programme were once again simple yet striking. The programme included information on the Club, background to the panto story and a list of previous pantos all of which as I have said before I’m sure adds to the audience’s enjoyment of the show particularly the puzzle on the back page.

An excellent evening, congratulations.