Red Riding Hood

TODAY’S children have so much entertainment thrown at them through so many different media that it is heartening to feel the excitement of a young audience at a traditional pantomime like Highcliffe Charity Players’ fortieth panto, ‘Red Riding Hood’. This is one of the more polished local societies, and details like the very professionally written and designed programme put one from the start in a mood to be impressed. That mood continues as the lights go up on the first of a series of really excellent and imaginatively-lit sets and well-executed dance numbers, right through to the cascade of glitter from the Regent Centre ceiling at the final curtain.

The secret is surely that the cast are enjoying themselves as much as the audience is. One of the hardest things for an amateur actor is to sustain knockabout comedy, but in this production there are four clown-ish figures – Bobby Boltz (Chris Duell), Tom Hood (Pete Whitaker), Mary Hood (Lucy Lamb, a delicious name for someone playing a shepherdess) and Granny Hood (Paul Barrington) – each of whom has their own take on keeping the laughs coming and on interacting with the audience. Pete Whitaker is particularly good as the chavviest of chavs and is a natural mover on stage, while Paul Barrington carries off the dame’s part with great confidence, helped by a series of ever more fantastical costumes; the jodhpurs and jockey’s cap are particularly memorable.

Coral Norton, at only 17, makes a pretty and sparky Red Riding Hood. Her would-be devourer, the Big Bad Wolf (Mike Young) is, if anything, rather too suave and almost likeable; we boo and hiss him, of course, but our hearts aren’t really in it. We also cheer enthusiastically for Fiona, the forest fairy, who as played by Debra Crowton shows more than a hint of Joyce Grenfell and has a rare rapport with the audience.

It is a lovely twist to the script that the principal boy, Jason the woodcutter, who is normally played either in fishnet tights and a short tunic or by a virile young hunk (not both), is here portrayed as a civil servant in dark suit and bowler hat. Chris Moore throws himself into the part but whether the problem is his diction or a dodgy amplification system, his lines are often difficult to hear.

The perennial headache of too few men in the chorus is evident, but in this production it really doesn’t matter as the (mostly) ladies of the chorus look beautiful – the dame does not have the monopoly on lovely costumes –  and sing well in some impressive ensemble numbers, notably ‘We will survive’. In fact, musical director Ian Carter brings the best out of his singers throughout.

All the traditional elements of panto are here, including the dozen or so children who go on stage to help sing ‘Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf?’ and who on the first night were in serious danger of stealing the show despite the excellence of the cast.

There were times on the first night when the pace seemed to drag, and the cast might have been better served by writer John Morley if he had tightened up the dialogue in several places and dropped one or two numbers: at two hours forty minutes (including the interval), the production could lose twenty minutes and be the better for it. But the pleasant abiding memory is of excited children’s cries of ‘He’s behind you’ and ‘Don’t pick the flowers, go straight to Granny’s’ – which is exactly as it should be after a panto.