| Pantomime: Pleasures and Purposes |
Aberystwyth Pantomime |
| The Wardens- Beauty and the Beast , Aberystwyth Arts Centre , January 26, 2016 |
Pantomime is important. It lightens the dourest months and gives venues a kick-start to the year. Coming to a performance mid-way in the run of the Wardens annual show- the company does a smaller show mid-year- makes an opportunity to look beyond the production itself to its place in theatre’s ecology overall. An article late in 2015, addressed elsewhere, surmised that the theatre screenings beamed in from far-off cities might have a booster effect on the inclination to attend theatre. It may be correct; it may not be. As a piece of surmise it would have been bolstered with some corroboration over hope. The two experiences are not the same. The best-mounted piece of research of recent years was unequivocal in its findings. One factor impells audience members to live performance; fairly obviously, that is its quality of liveness. The rest is nice-to-have, but fluff. To sit in Aberystwyth’s comfortable compact cinema is not the same as being in the main house with not a seat to be had at eleven in the morning. The member of the audience two seats away- a third of the way along Row J- is frequently on his feet in the grip of overpowering engagement and excitement. He shouts and jabs his finger. He is a first-time viewer and the protocols of politeness are unfamiliar to a five year old. This is not meant as point-scoring over cinema, least of all from a television viewer of three or four films weekly. The Pixar era has been a golden age but viewers are not united in noise, activity nor ducking from the gentle spray of a water pistol. Theatre frets over its audience. There is one pointer to its survival. Get them in young. What Arad Goch does over the year in its touring the Wardens does in a compressed couple of weeks in January. The pantomime, like its summer counterpart, is a big show. Unlike the summer show the Wardens blend professionals and community. It works, for two reasons. The first is, as in all endeavour, absolute certainty of whom it is being done for. “Beauty and the Beast” is for that first-time viewer in Row J who is unable to keep seated. That means no innuendo, scant reference to current affairs, no dependence on TV culture. Parents do get to stand and participate and Richard Cheshire’s Cherie Trifle spies herself a possible boyfriend in the third row. But Alex Neil’s Beast is just the right side of scary, and redeemed anyhow by his appalling table manners. The second reason the show succeeds is that it has a tight team, who have worked together for years, at its creative centre. Elinor Powell is in the pit leading the band. Louise Amery is at the white piano for up to three performances a day, while juggling a venue management role, demanding always but never more so than in current days. Ioan Guile and Marcus Dobson are different generations, but with seasoned comedic experience. Both hold the stage and their audience in the palm of their hands. The Wardens Chair, also a proven singing and comedy talent, has not just allied herself to a gifted painter and scenographer but has a new role to tackle here. In her new appearance as Julie McNicholls Vale she plays a member of the palace retinue, enchanted to become a tea-pot. She is one of a group. Her fellow victims of mischievous magic are a candle (Carl Ryan), a clock (Thomas Mutton) and a cupboard (Theresa Jones). In the line-up of good versus bad Hannah Priestly’s Belle is helped along by Donna Richards’ Rosebud, possessed of a soprano voice of beauty. Her nemesis is Kedma Macias’ Frostbite, a striking new villain for the company and one not to be lost, and her protege Angus Marshall’s strutting hulk Gassbag. This production was also a signed performance. True to form the lively presence of the signer at the edge of the stage did not escape the attentions of Cherie Trifle. If there is a highpoint it has to be “the Twelve Days of Christmas” with its manic rush and its collection of unlikely presents that include unwashed socks and an unusually designed item of under-garment- it would suit a Mars inhabitant from “Total Recall.” The audience member next to me, a parent, has spent some time on the enthralled child. To glance left during this manic sequence is to see that the expressions on the faces of child and parent are indistinguishable. |
Reviewed by: Adam Somerset |
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