Wellington Pantomime Group enjoyed a successful run of seven performances of ‘Puss in Boots’ last week at the Wellesley Theatre attracting a total audience of about 2,000 with the three matinees nearly sold out.

It was a return to the more traditional style of panto, with Geoff Cross making a great return as artistic and musical director after a break of ten years. The show was full of all the usual panto favourites such as ‘Reach’, ‘Hero’ and ‘On a Wonderful Day’, as well as the more unlikely – ‘Where Did You Get That Cat?’ and ‘You Gotta Pay Your Taxes’, all performed with great enthusiasm by the relatively small cast.

The audience were enthusiastic in cheering the Goodie – The Magic Cobbler (Penny Bradnum) and even more so in booing the Baddie – Blackleather (Michael Cole), henchman to the crazily inept Dr Frankenstein (David Waring).

Mary Lewis gave a wonderfully overstated performance as Queen Tulip and Pete Watts delighted as the hen-pecked King Bulbo. Their daughter, Princess Daffodil, was played with ditzy charm by Alice Luke with the family being kept in order by the pompous Lord Edam (John Skittrell).

The big stars of the show had to be the animals – Ashleigh Payne as the Miller’s Cat, finding his inner feline, and Jack Glanville as the eponymous Puss. Jack threw himself into the role displaying a great singing voice, a lot of cheeky charm and zaniness, and had a great connection with the audience.

Not to be forgotten – the junior chorus of Martha Askew, Daisy Holloway, Madison Bouchta, Maddie Riley, Rebecca Watts and Isaac Jones, who hopped around as rabbits and scampered as mice in the windmill, clearly enjoyed themselves.

The senior dancers – Casey Evett, Megan Lang, Jasmine Maunder, Leanne Payne and Ebony Selleck – were well choreographed by Ashleigh Payne, assisted by Alice Luke, with a great spooky and athletic number to ‘Thriller’, as well as all the chorus numbers.

Caz Redstone starred as the somewhat shy, lovelorn, poetry-mad miller’s son and with the help of Puss, the over-the-top Queen of Catland (Margaret Liddel) and the defiant Magic Cobbler (Penny Bradnum) became a real hero, with some wonderful musical numbers. One of the best was ‘I Can Hear the Bells’, which could have been a rather soppy love duet with Princess Daffodil but became a big comic production number, ending with the vicar disappearing up towards the flies along with his bell rope!

Dawn Morton and Kathryn Fear, played the knockabout Max and Glen – sisters to Arthur, with lots of great physical style and came good in the end. Michael Cole’s Blackleather was a real villain worth booing and his transformation to Postman Pat at the end was a sight to behold. David Waring, as Dr Frankenstein, is wonderful at physical comedy and can never be truly menacing.

The adult chorus was Liz Payne, Nick Riley, Bridgette Sells (also playing a delightfully cheeky Rabbit), Margaret Liddel And Penny Bradnum

Setting the panto in Amsterdam allowed for numerous gags, and the beautifully painted set, with a windmill, canal and well, followed by Dr Frankenstein’s Amazink Machine in Act 2, showed off the group’s technical talent. This was all topped off with the wonderful lighting design by Matt Redstone and his team of Alex Bush, Crispin Buttle and Gabriella-Rose Gonta.

The band are an award-winning bunch of seasoned musicians: Conductor/drums – Geoff Cross; lead guitar – Oli Redstone; vocal coach/keyboards/piano – Jo Buck; rhythm guitar – Steve Bradnum; keyboards – Rob Spurway; bass guitar – Kevin Coughlin.

Set design – Ian Spurway. Construction and crew – Ian Spurway, Craig Askew, Chris Barrett, Steve Bush, David Goldsworthy, John Jasper, Claire Knighton, Geoff Redstone, Bern Sawle.

Stage manager– Claire Knighton , DSM – Helen Hitchen. Sound designer – Colin Marshall. Crew – Colin Marshall, Rupert Sells, Kit Sells. Costume design – Penny |Bradnum. Team – Cathy Holloway, Margaret Liddel, Roz Mason, Sam Riley. Projection design for the Amazink Machine – Andy Jones. Make-up team – Heli Vile, Mark Saunders, Holly Skittrell. Props team –Kirk Shepherd (also played Frankenstein’s Monster – Klonk Nutbolt), Dawn Morton, Pete Watts. Box office – Odette’s Tearoom. CONTRIBUTED