Familiar Cambridgeshire figures are behind one of the season’s most glorious pantomimes, not least among them Dan Schumann whose accolades include being creative director of Haverhill Arts Centre. He has also written and directed this year’s pantomime Beauty and the Beast. CambsNews went to see it.
This show is enchanting, exhilarating and uplifting. See it at least once. It’s even greater when it goes wrong. Michael Heslop, as Dame Dolly Dumb-Belle forgot his next line after the confetti gun failed to go off.
Cool as a cucumber, he turned to the band leader and said: “Where did I get to, Uncle Joe?”
This Beauty and The Beast, written and directed by Haverhill Arts Centre’s creative director Dan Schumann, zips along with one thousand per cent of energy from start to finish. It’s clever, it’s funny, there is no smut – the songs are great and it’s all that you could ever want a pantomime to be.
And it glitters. The costumes are inspired. Dame Dolly has a different wild extravaganza of fabric each time she comes on. There is a French theme. Jodie Corbett’s cute Cockney Fairy Rose – asks the audience to say Bonjour every time she appears and the scene is set in a village called Petit Pois.
When the senior dancers and the babes first appear, they are in the loveliest dresses in French navy and white – over white can-can petticoats. It’s tres chic. The lads have matching navy tops and pale blue trousers.
The Tricolour red, white, and blue is worn imaginatively throughout the show. Belle’s ballgown, a crinoline of pale, sparking gold is breathtaking. The costumes deserve an Oscar.
This is a cast of triple threats. The ensemble dancers, including the children from The Lisa Mason School of Dance are an essential part of the show.
All the performances are excellent. When Jodie Corbett’s Fairy Rose and Johannah Hetherington as the malignant Medeina the evil Enchantress glare at each other across the stage we believe they are good and evil. (Though actually they both look gorgeous. Medeina’s dark, clingy, glittery dress is very unforgiving – but she is forgiven completely.)
Aaron Lord as Prince Henry turns into the Beast with such a transformation, I wondered if it was the same actor. Michael Heslop as Dame Dolly is a confection of panache and aplomb.
It’s said you shouldn’t play a dame until you are 45 – but Heslop was perfection at 19 – so comfortable on the stage – it’s his absolute home. Now at 21 he’s off the scale. I could watch him every night.
Sinead Mathias-Medeiros, who plays Belle. is a dancer and singer in West End shows with the most beautiful and powerful voice. David Learner (RADA trained and last year’s baddie Fungus Fleshcreep in Jack and the Beanstalk) plays Belle’s father, Professor Phillipe Flopp (it’s funnier if you say it with a French accent).
Gaston Dumb-Belle, Belle’s unsuccessful suitor, is played by Ricky Rayment from TOWIE (The Only Way is Essex) and gives us the absolute personification of the sort of muscular bloke who takes you out to the pub and seems to be gazing lovingly at you but is actually looking past you at the mirror.
I saw this show on the day it opened at 1pm. It was the second show of the day – and it absolutely fizzed. Much of the run is almost sold out already but it’s still term time, so there were very few little children in the audience today.
A class of theatre students from Suffolk College in Bury filled most of the front rows. They were sports. They knew the songs – they called out the responses. Four of them even went up onto the stage instead of the youngsters usually called up. They were asked what they wanted for Christmas.
“A place at drama school,” said one. As I said, this show was inspiring.
Beauty and the Beast is at Haverhill Arts Centre until December 31. Shows at various times. Tickets: www.haverhillartscentre.co.uk or 01440 714140
