The Rock ‘n Roll Panto at the New Wolsey Theatre is a rite of passage in the world of Pantos and you know you are going to be getting a night of fabulousness!
Sleeping Beauty is the panto for the 2024/2025 season and it’s full of bright colours, fantastic costumes, sparkle, laughter, singing, music – pretty much everything you want.
The night kicks off with ‘Let’s Get This Panto Started’ with a full on band using loads of instruments banging out this cracking track like it’s a gig… these awesome musicians also happen to be the cast! This is what multi-talented actors look like.
In this Act we meet Auntie Rosie as she springs onto the stage through the trapdoor, she’s the dame who’s nice, funny, motherly and the one who wears the most outrageous costumes. We get introduced to her sister Thornica, the baddie, also a dame – so we have a panto with two dames – one good one evil.
As well as getting to see all the cast at this point we get introduced to Princess Aurora’s best friend: Milo the Dragon who is a bubbly, fun-loving dragon who is just full of positivity and smiles. Unless they are scared when lost in the forest, or if danger is lurking.
The story moves along extremely effectively with the acting being interspersed with fantastic pop songs which have had minor lyrical adjustments to suit, however what is really clever is both the song choice and the scene timing. It was nearly perfection! The flow was smooth and the tracks fitted like a jigsaw, great songs such as ‘Roar’, ‘Sweet Child of Mine’, ‘It’s Oh So Quiet’ and many more which are not to be revealed here. It just all worked.
As well as the great musicianship from the whole cast, the acting was marvellous too. All the characters were made more wonderful by the individual actors, I know that’s what actors are supposed to do, however every small part actor managed to bring something different to the character they were portraying and it was such a joy to see the scope of talent and the energy each one brought to the performance. For example, Signe Larsson as Jimmy James was hilarious and Meg Narongchai as The King was marvellous.
Of course, we have plenty of audience interaction from shouting, booing, clapping, singing, laughing and if you were really lucky (or not) trying to make balloon animals, it was very involved and the audience loved it.
Although there were plenty of laughs, the funniest giggles were from Princess Aurora getting Prince Toby of Framlingham’s name wrong every time.
For me all the cast were exceptional and don’t forget some were playing at least two characters as there are only nine actors with twenty-one characters in the show and to remind you further, they are also the full band. I need to highlight Max Gallagher as Thornica as a perfect casting, I felt he truly was living the part as the panto baddie and his performance was superb.
Full Cast List:
Craig Anderson – Rosie
Mya Fox-Scott – Princess Aurora
Max Gallagher – Thornica
Laura Gómez Gracia – Milo the Dragon
Burhan Kathawala – Prince Three
Signe Larsson – Jimmy James
Meg Narongchai – The King
Emily Pickett – multiple parts
Alexander Zane – Prince Toby
Photo Credit – Will Green Photography
This is a highly recommended panto and will be playing at The New Wolsey Theatre until 18th January 2025
Click here for more information.