Review: SLEEPING BEAUTY, Wyvern Theatre Swindon
Photo credit: Anthony Hunt
David Ashley, Dash to his friends and colleagues, has appeared and directed over twenty pantomimes and has been a regular at the Wyvern Theatre Swindon for many years. Last year, he teamed up with the delightfully diminutive Ben Goffe to form a double act who drive their production of Sleeping Beauty with bags of energy and good humour. Since Imagine took over producing the venue’s pantomime, the storytelling and production values appear to have been enhanced, and this year’s show is very good family entertainment with just enough innuendo to satisfy the adults in the audience.
Sam Simkin’s script focuses on telling the full story with a flashback to Beauty’s christening eighteen years earlier (2007!), a neat explanation of why Carabosse was not invited, the audience watch over the key to the room where the spinning wheel is kept, a dream sequence in which we hear Beauty express her love for Prince Scott, the capture and imprisonment of Scott by the evil Carabosse, a battle with an impressive looking dragon, and the ultimate “loves true kiss” to save her. He does dispense with the usual one-hundred-year interlude which has always seemed the oddest part of the story and the result flows well while leaving some room for the usual comic pantomime business.
Ashley and Goffe as Nurse Nellie and Muddles do include a birthday cake baking scene, which is delivered at a leisurely pace with plenty of slosh to tip over Muddles, a good music hall routine of ‘Me and My Shadow’, the traditional Ghost scene with Incy Wincey spider and the songsheet with two kids from the audience and ‘I am the Music Man’. However, the best moment is when Dame Nellie comes on with the Vixen’s wig and glasses and Muddles as Radley Balsh for a quiz with Jenny Ryan (the real Vixen from ITV’s The Chase) as Carabosse. If anything, this good routine could have been longer. There are also plenty of local references to the Swindon area, the Traitors, Jet2 Holidays and the 6-7 meme as in nearly every other pantomime this year. All of them get the desired response from the engaged audience.
Abbie Budden has good stage presence and sings well as Princess Beauty and teams up well with Duncan Drury as Prince Scott, while Thom Tuck has fun as the overprotective and slightly bizarre King Tier. Fairy Slumber, Gabrielle Friedman, oversees all of the action in the village of Forty Winks with charm and elegance. The Ensemble and Junior Ensemble team are well integrated into the scenes to give the whole show a coherent good-looking feel. The pace in the early scenes seems a little rushed and some later scenes could have been sped up but overall, they squeeze a lot into the two-hour running time.
Though the sets are simple, the costumes are excellent looking, fresh and colourful, and the music choices work well. The inclusion of ‘Back in time’ from Back to the Future the Musical is particularly enjoyable, especially with Muddles driving across the stage in a cut-out Delorean. This is a very enjoyable, well produced and directed pantomime with a team of stars who work well together to deliver plenty of laughs and pleasure.
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Nick Wayne
Sleeping Beauty plays at Swindon’s Wyvern Theatre until 4 January, with further info here.