The Woldingham Pantomime 1994

Frankenstein the Panto

The Village Pantomime has been one of the major foci of Woldingham collective effort for the past 25 years at least, and it says much for the continuing health of the community spirit that approximately ONE HUNDRED of the village's busy people found the time to mount this year's splendid production. They all deserve our thanks for helping to preserve our cultural (sic) heritage.

One of the great pleasures of pantomime is its predictability but this can also become one of its great detractions. This year we were presented with a new and unlikely companion for the traditional Aladdin, Jack, Dick, Cinders et al in the shape of Frankenstein. As it turned out we were rather more in for a night of ham-up horror than the Hammer Horror that some expected!

The show started with an extremely melodious and well played overture which foretold of the excellent work throughout the production of the MD Alma Pitcher and her co-musicians Ian Crowther, Matthew Parr, and Willy Harden.

The opening scene, set in the Barvarian Tavern of Herr and Frau Pumpernickel (Graham Ledger and Martita Manrique), had plenty of gaiety and bustle and the first of many strongly sung and danced chorus numbers.

We were soon introduced to the title role of the piece, Frank N. Stein (played by Chris Mikami), the down-trodden hired help of the Pumpnickels. As we have come to expect of Chris, Frankie was that usual easy interface between the cast and the every-ready audience, but more of that later.

Next we met Heidi, the orphaned step-child of the Pumpernickels, a sort of better off and tamer Cinderella, and her husband to be Prince Ludwig (didn't I say earlier that we loved predictability!) They were ably assisted by Buckles played by Chris Goodwin and Kodak the dog (because he is always snapping) played by Neil Robson.

Mamie Pitcher managed the role of Heidi well throughout and Justine King was all that we expect of a principal boy, good voice, good looks and that other essential element, good legs!

As if all this glamour were not enough, five, no, six further lovelies in the shape of school-marm Miss Nellie and her disorderly pupils soon adorned the scene. As he has done on so many occasions before, Reg Anderson presented a wonderfully arch Dame with a sort of understated resignation to the events that befall her. The girls: Fiona McNally, Julie Anderson, Sarah Greenwood, Sarah Nelson and Krystyna Kozminski, were as wild a bunch as you could ever wish to encounter on a dark night.

The next character to explode onto the scene was the nutty Professor Crackpot, who was attempting to invent the world's first peppermint sweet. The zany Professor was played by Roger Runnett.

Now that all the "goodies" were assembled, the plot, such as it was, was exposed with the appearance of the incompetent Vampire duo of Count Dracula (Chris Chaplin) and his very young looking grand-mother Granula (Berry Butler). These two spent the rest of the pantomime attempting to de-sanguinise Heidi. One of the problems with panto baddies is that they should be bad enough to represent the ultimately evil but without terrifying the younger members of the audience. This was well achieved by the pair who never overstepped the mark into the macabre.

For me, the highlights of the show were the conversion and the thriller scenes': In the former, the hapless Frankie was transformed by the incompetent Professor into the bolt-necked monster Frankenstein that we know and love. The selection of his make-up colour, green, was a happy reminder to those of us who are old enough (just) to have seen Chris as Rumplestiltskin. All that was missing was the chuckle (you remember - heh heh heh). Chris has said (again) that he intends to take a rest for a while having been in most of the last ten pantomimes. If he means it this time, next year's show will have to work hard to replace him.

The Thriller scene was played to the Michael Jackson hit and the chorus work and the final solo section were very well worked and exciting to watch. The chorus and particularly the solo skeleton deserve our congratulations as does choreographer Joanna Pack.

The staging was simple but effective and what scene changes there were were well handled by Stage Manager David Martin and his crew. Again I particularly liked the conversion and panel game scenes.

It is not possible to complete an assessment of any Woldingham Pantomime without paying tribute to the wardrobe. Once again Joan Oliver and her troupe of seamstresses produced a veritable banquet of colourful eye-catching costumes which added greatly to a very attractive production.

There is one final word of praise due and that goes to Director James Peacock. This was James's first venture as a Director. It is a hard enough job to direct a straight play but pantomime is another thing altogether. There is a large cast of greatly mixed ages and abilities, a far greater number of scenes and most importantly a degree of pace and audience participation that is difficult to achieve. James is to be congratulated on a very successful first outing.

GMP