40 Christmas Crackers Party

Regis Players
Christmas Crackers Party
Reviewed by: Jose Harrison on Saturday, 9th December, 2017.
Venue: Felpham Village Hall
Type of Production: Review.
Director: Peter Green (Panto) Gill Lambourn (Rest)

SHOW REPORT

What a great idea Regis Players had for a Christmas production. They felt they didn’t have the time to stage a full length play at such a busy time of year but wanted to celebrate the season with an event so decided to suggest to all their members, and for that matter anyone else, that anyone interested in appearing on stage should prepare a piece which they could perform during a ‘supper evening’. The result was a wonderful variation of poems, prose, songs and music, all very different, giving an excellent variety of entertainment. As one would expect some were more appealing to the bulk of the audience, causing much mirth, and some were outstandingly performed and more memorable.

I enjoyed all the performances in the opening section but there were too many to mention them all by name but I was very impressed with Peter, John, Clive, David and Trevor’s great opening with ‘The Boys of the Old Brigade’ with their outlandish costumes, including fishnet tights and brilliant wigs. This was followed by Gill Lambourn, who was the ‘master of ceremonies’ for the whole of the first half, doing ‘a take-off’ of Shirley Valentine with the most brilliant accent. She also performed ‘Chav Nativity’ and finished the session with ‘Christmas Cake Recipe’ in which she finished up ‘tight as a newt’. All three of her performances and the handling of the introductions were in a class of their own. Yvette and Simon Walters provided a nice bit of variety with Yvette playing the saxophone finishing off with a cleverly produced ‘I Remember it Well’. Rebecca Moore treated us to the ‘Ode to Nev’n Clive, a take-off from Seasons Greetings accompanying herself on a guitar and for me the icing on the cake in this first half was Clive Curtis’s Rambling Sid Rumpo. How did he remember all those impossible words.

In the interval we were treated to an excellent ploughman’s supper which was followed by a highly entertaining version of ‘Cinderella’ where everything went wrong!!! The Narrator, John Covey, was superb making a very amusing 20 minutes even better. The arrival of the stage coach in pieces, through a trap door in the stage, and the building of it was certainly the highlight of the pantomime especially as the wheel fell off and Cinderella picked it up and carried it off. The whole production was full of similar amusing incidents.

A youngster, Sammy Nye, then sang ‘Let it Go’ with great professionalism and the evening closed with the audience and cast singing well known Christmas carols and songs. A thoroughly good evening was enjoyed by all.