As is the Boxing Day tradition in the Pastie Bap household, we ventured out to The Grand Opera House to see this year’s pantomime offering – one of my favourites – Sleeping Beauty. It was absolutely lashing by the time we got through the doors, but the weather didn’t seem to dampen anyone’s spirits as the place was packed with adults and kids alike, complete with flashy spinning lights everywhere!
As you probably already know, Sleeping Beauty is the story of a beautiful Princess who gets cursed at birth and has to spend the next few years of her life avoiding the prick of a spinning wheel or else she’ll be put to sleep for 100 years. This may be a very old tale, but this one was spiced up with the usual antics of May McFetridge and as always she was the star of the show. This year’s big number was May’s impersonation of Adele, complete with massive hair and hunky male dancers which went down a storm. The other main characters were Beauty, Aurora (the good fairy), Carabosse (the wicked witch), Muddles (the silly side kick) and the Prince.
As always, the panto was filled with mountains of pop culture references, however this year’s seemed a bit strained, and there was even a repeat of Cheryl Cole’s infamous Fight for this Love dance, which I’m sure I’ve seen before at a pantomime – some of the pop references just seemed like they were shoe-horned in there, which probably still appealed to the kids, who love hearing One Direction regardless of whether or not it makes sense, but it just seems strange if you’re a bit older. Saying that, Aurora did do some pretty spot on impressions of Strictly Judges etc, which more than made up for the disjointed presentation, but her Catherine Tate “Am I Bovvered?” sketch was another seriously outdated reference.
Lorraine Chase played Carabosse in her Grand Opera House pantomime debut, her banter was good and she was quite funny at times, but the script was lacking and her singing was weak at best (the singing overall from all the cast members wasn’t very good, but the speaking parts were funny). Beauty, wasn’t very memorable, neither was the Prince, but Muddles and May were very very funny. There also seemed to be a lot of ad libbing and laughing in the Boxing Day show, which I really really like to see in a live show that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The definite highlight of the night was the big finish were they sang the alternative 12 days of Christmas, but they didn’t get any kids up on stage this year, which was a bit different.
Overall, this year’s pantomime was back to basics, there were no gimmicky 3D bits (although the 3D bits were surprisingly good the past few years), and very few tricks with the scenery and props, which was a bit disappointing when there was so much that they could have done with the overgrown palace in regards to the stage set. All in all, the pantomime was good, but I’ve seen better in the past few years. I don’t know whether or not it was due to the fact that it was boxing day, or just a weak show, but let’s hope that next year’s pantomime steps up its game!
