Wildlife

The rest of those The Stage panto reviews... Sleeping Beauty Published Friday 14 December 2012 at 10:58 by Susie Wild "As usual the New Theatre bang out the bling and special effects in their big budget, long-running pantomime. This season’s festive fairytale Sleeping Beauty is packed full of fireworks, twinkle-twinkle starry nights, flying bicycles, tarzan-rope swinging, curtain-clinging, Batman and Robin and four can-canning penguins." Babes in the Wood Published Friday 14 December 2012 at 11:02 by Susie Wild "Babes in the Wood meets Robin Hood in this traditional, touring Owen Money panto vehicle. Based on an old English ballad, the story sees the wicked Sheriff of Nottingham plot to have his niece Samantha and nephew Simon killed, resulting in the two children being abandoned deep within Sherwood Forest where the Big Bad Wolf lives. But all is not doom and gloom as slapstick comedy, bad Christmas cracker jokes, considered costumes and strong songs ...

Peter Pan Published  Thursday 6 December 2012  at  14:51  by  Susie Wild Sherman’s modernised story focuses on the experience of Wendy, a teenage girl growing up painfully fast. Rebecca Newham makes a confident stage debut complimented by a well-voiced cast and original songs with a Disney film feel. A scene from Peter Pan at the Sherman Cymru, Cardiff Photo: Farrows Creative Taunted by her brothers for owning her first bra, Wendy is left alone on Christmas Eve while her dad sneaks off to the pub. Feeling old enough to begin to understand the bigger questions in life but given none of the answers at home, she is whisked away to Neverland by mischeivous charmer Peter Pan (Joshua Considine). There she shifts identity from sweet mother homemaker for Adam Ant and the Lost Boys in part one, to rock chick pirate Black Heart, fighting out her teenage angst as the Captain’s right hook woman in part two. Stereotypes are subverted to good effect at the s...

I am going to seven pantomimes and festive shows for The Stage this year. Here is my review of Pantomime Number One Aladdin Published  Monday 3 December 2012  at  11:37  by  Susie Wild Aberdare’s Aladdin combines Eastern magic, mummies and genies with plenty of rub-a-dub-dub. Last year’s ugly sister Frank Vickers once again dames up wonderfully as Widow Twankey, with more costume changes than the Oscars - highlights including a camel and ingenious variations on rotary washing lines thanks to the BA (Hons) costume staff and students from Coleg Morgannwg. Also trying to have a rub, but this time of the magic lamp, not the royal laundry, is Baker Boys’ Richard Corgan, making his evil panto debut by playing Abanazar as a Shakespearean villain - cue lots of silly jokes based on mispronouncing his name - ‘Av a banana’, ‘Abergavenny’ and so on. Lower budget than the big city pantos, this production’s sets are less flashy, but a stronger adaptation of th...