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WIND IN THE WILLOWS
Director: Pat Dubras.
The panto this year was a version of the old childrens' favourite by Kenneth Grahame, rewritten in Panto style by Michael Buchanon-Smart. We had a cast of 45, including 19 children. With Gloria Le Boutilliers' chorography and Rex Moss and John Pearse providing the music we had a fast moving, up- beat Show, lasting two and a quarter hours, that kept the children in the audience (and on the Stage) happily entertained. I would like to thank Gloria for all the hard work she put in, while obviously in pain with her hip, and we would all like to wish her well with her forthcoming operation. Rex, always smiling and as usual a joy to have on the piano, playing with bounce and gusto, also deserves thanks. In fact, we had a wonderful team this year, with the always cheerful and helpful Roberta Rainbow organising costumes with never a moan! Sara Miller with her quiet, confident voice calling the cast over the Intercom, even, as happened, when a member of cast was not evident on stage! Leigh Ruderham came out of the woodwork to become a superb Stage Manager and even apparently enjoyed it helped enthusiastically by several club members! Alan Cadoret not only built and drove the wonderful car, but also designed the very clever Caravan that turned into Toad Hall, which was then built with his quiet expertise by David Alexander. A little whisper in my ear, that Robyn Kent, one of the mice, had a mother that could paint and led me to find Ann Kent and her partner, Steve Bealey, who spent many cold hours in the Scene Dock bringing Toad hall to life! There were some very odd props needed and Talia de Carteret did a stalwart job with her helpers, everything always in the right place!
Of course, in this show the Animal make-up was very important, and Gayle Jones again came to our rescue. Despite feeling very ill during dress rehearsals and opening night, she staggered down to give us Toad, Badger, Mole and Ratty, not to mention cats, mice, ducklings, weasels and stoats. Our thanks to her, and also to Val, who helped her every night. We could not have done without our incredible team of parents and grandparents who looked after all the children and struggled to keep them in order - no mean feat I can tell you.
Of course, it wasn't all sweetness and light, we had to call out the Paramedics when Toad, a la Mike Monticelli, took a nose dive out of his boat and we thought he had broken his ankle. I think he hoped he would get 2 attractive nurses but it was 2 hunky men, who were somewhat surprised to deal with a toad with a bad leg! We also had to fill in another medical report when Ella the mouse fell down the stairs and had a huge bump on her head! Then, we had a wonderful moment, or three, when Fraser (Mole) Martin had only Dobbin the horse to talk to when Jordan (Ratty) Livesey took a walk upstairs at the wrong time!
Toad ventured out of the Caravan and started a conversation with Dobbin much to everyone's surprise, and then when Ratty decided to wander on, of course, he had no idea what had been said, if anything! Quite interesting! I was very proud to actually keep all the Weasels and Stoats from killing each other! What made me think it was a good idea to have 7 boys between 6 and 14 in the cast, I don't know!
Margot Kelly and Alan Keeling in the midst of hordes of children sold raffle tickets and programmes and we have sent off a donation to RNLI via Collette Labey's super coffee morning that she recently held in Grouville Parish Hall in memory of her brother.
With memories of all the fantastic performances by the leads, our enthusiastic Chorus, our loveable Judge, an ebullient Centenier, a cranky traffic Warden, an incredible dancing dog, a few hairy moments and a lot of fun and laughter we bring down the Curtain on Panto for another Year.
Pat
