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Dick Whittington
Civic Hall, Bedworth
12th - 29th December 2007
Reviewed by Brian Miller
This
is a Duggie Chapman traditional family pantomime, under the
direction of Freddie ‘parrot face’ Davies, two names familiar to many magicians.
Whatever you think about Mel Harvey’s self publicity machine you have to admire
his stamina in continuing to promote himself. I made the 230 mile return trip to
‘hiss and boo’ together with the rest of the near to capacity audience….I was
not disappointed. In fact it was a double pleasure as unknown to me at the time
of booking there was another magician in the cast.
Dave Short M.M.C. as ‘Sarah the Cook’ was a wonderful pantomime dame, one of the
best that I have seen. He had 10 changes of costume all which were amazing and
his lines were delivered with just the right amount of ‘campness’, together with
Mel as ‘Idle Jack’ he was on and off stage throughout the entire two hour
performance.
Mel immediately connected with his audience and used this to great effect
especially as a party of scouts were in attendance and ‘Arkala’ became the
‘butt’ of his jokes.
Wobbly wand, monkey bar, draw-box with fur rabbit production got him off to a
great start. There were some great sketches using musical instruments with more
magic from Mel, multiplying wands, disappearing dice, in the ten minute ‘Harry
Potter’ spot with a young boy from the audience.
In this day of technology it was heartening to have real live musicians to
provide backing etc. There were a couple of dead spots with scenery changes and
no doubt these will be eliminated as the run gets under way. The smoke machine
operator was over zealous in his use of and being half way back in the audience
I just about escaped being choked to death, we know it is not toxic but
never-the-less uncomfortable for those closer to the stage.
I was quite surprised to see a male playing the part of Dick
Whittington….what-ever-next……..a female playing the part of a dame? Idle Jack
returned with unequal ropes which was a perfect link into his song-sheet item
based on the worm…in ‘Wiggly Woo’. This interlude enabled the complete cast of
23 to change into their final costumes which were absolutely fantastic, colour
themed in gold, black and yellow.
Magic has always played an influential part in traditional family pantomimes and
I am sure there must be many other magicians out there fulfilling this
role….let’s hear about them.
Box Office: 02476 376707
www.civichallinbedworth.co.uk
© Brian Miller, December 2007