| This Sinbad is All-good |
Aberystwyth Pantomime |
| The Wardens Company- Sinbad the Sailor , Aberystwyth Arts Centre , January 11, 2009 |
| In the best of pantomimes a fairy descends to ensure that wishes come true. A year back, after “Mother Goose”, I made a wish-“for 2009 a big meaty solo number from Rachel Crane, please.” There are some good singers performing this season- Elin Llwyd in Milford and Kate Quinnell in Mold for a start- but there ain't nothing for sure to equal Rachel Crane's bluesy, belting, barn-storming treatment of “the Jungle Book” number “Talk Like Me.” Hers is an astounding voice with a jaw-dropping range. As an encore the Aber audience even gets to hear her doing Vicky Pollard in a composite “If I were not upon this stage/ There’s something else I’d like to be” number. The Aber pantomime has always been strong musically; regular Elinor Powell is again musical director and conductor of the seven-strong band. This year the writer, uncredited, has given a larger share of the show over to music and dance numbers, all to the good. The Wardens’ productions have always featured the most groan-inducing of puns. A tortured joke on the Taliban a few years back does not bear repeating. This year there is “Aber” and “Abba”, “mizzen” and “missing”, “ingredients” and “greedy ants”, “salaam, salaam” and “false alarm”. The one about the reason you won’t find aspirin in a jungle I am sure was stolen from a Christmas cracker. The band kicks the show off with “Snake Dance”, along with a few extra creative rills from Louise Amery's piano. At times I think I heard some wonderful high-pitched reed playing from Brian Sansbury. The dancing, under regular choreographer Rachel West, goes from electric disco with eye-blurring arm movements to a hornpipe and a pas de deux. The biggest number “Reach for the Sky” has thirty-five dancers on stage. Even the most junior, most likely Emma Mace and Gabrielle Raw-Rees, have a sharpness and precision in their movement. For true quality always look to the detail. Structurally, the author has made some interesting changes, away from the normal pattern. To appreciate the Aber pantomime and its link with its audience it has to be understood it is as much institution as production, as a new cast member put it. Every institution benefits from a shake-up from time to time. This year the chirpy Simple Simon “wotcher, kids” character has gone. There are two handsome heroes, in the shapes of Will Turner-lookalike Aled Jones and bare-navelled Dafydd Hall Williams. Aled Jones puts on a great piece of mildly mocking falsetto for the “You're the One that I Want” number. Similarly, there are two heroines, played by Mari Wyn Lewis and Heather Cheeseman. In truth Heather Cheeseman's role is not the greatest dramatically. She is kidnapped early on by David Blumfield’s Bluebeard (commander of the good ship “the Johnny Depp”) and has not much to do other than wait to be rescued. But with a winning smile and a beautiful voice she does get to sing a lovely duet and the best solo song of the evening. What is so refreshing about “Sinbad the Sailor” is that it is in parts so up to date and at others times so traditional. Stephen Fry last year made an unwelcome foray into the genre nudging it smut-wards. “Sinbad the Sailor” has no need for innuendo. The “Ghostbusters” scene is achingly funny and the fact that it is being recycled for at least the third time does not matter in the least. When Symphonia Sinbad stoops a cry of “A vast behind “ goes up. That is far as the script goes and rightly so. As an exercise in narrative “Sinbad the Sailor” is frankly all over the place. Shops in Arabia are covered in Chinese script. A Queen on a South Sea island has an accent imported from Jamaica. A pagan God is introduced and almost instantly a single shot from Sinbad's catapult splits its statue in two. Some split keys are mentioned at the opening and then forgotten for most of the show. By the time a Book of Spells is burnt in the mouth of a fiery stone statue I am sure I was not alone in having entirely forgotten its significance. Does this baggy picaresque narrative matter? Not in the slightest. As usual the production has a cast of forty-five and only fourteen named parts. Among the newcomers Timothy Howe makes a memorable debut; promotion to a named part next year would be well earned. And finally to the Cheshire-Guile partnership. There are no pair of comic cops in this production- a couple of stooges do get rudely abused in the kitchen slapstick scene which replaces the wallpaper scene. So the comedy is down to Richard Cheshire and Ioan Guile. One gets to wear his usual eight costumes- a high point being a black PVC miniskirt and tottering heels. The other sheds all dignity, if he ever had any, in a leopard skin dress and pith helmet. (An entry marked by the band with “the Lion Sleeps Tonight.”) They hold the stage with the sheer enjoyment of being there. The odd slips of the tongue are occasions for ad-libs. When an articulate child in the audience shouts out “the gorilla has taken him hostage” Richard Cheshire’s twenty years plus experience tells him exactly how long to hold a pause before replying “Which school do you go to?” with just the right stress on the word “school.” In a week of unbroken frost and in a season of doleful news, the Wardens Company once again kicks the year off with their dose of winter warmth and cheer. And if you need to know why there's no aspirin in the jungle buy a ticket. “Sinbad the Sailor” runs until Sunday 18th January. |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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