Hybrid production a 'curate's egg'

10:03am Friday 18th April 2008

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DURING the interval of Marlborough Players latest production Waiting for Panto I overheard one of the audience using the term 'curate's egg".

That just about summed up this hybrid production because to me it was good in parts.

Waiting for Panto, Marlborough Town Hall

Runs until April 19

Local playwright Mike Williams created this fusion of Shakespeare's Hamlet and the good old traditional Aladdin panto.

It revolved around a group of amateur actors who found themselves on stage with an audience but no play!

They could not agree on whether to present Hamlet or Aladdin and embarked on a kind of mongrel production with a bit of both.

Well, more than that really, because there was also a touch of the Mikado, Rozencranz and Guildenstern and even a mention of Agatha Christie's Mousetrap.

Director Charlotte Mannion and a cast of 14 tackled this odd production bravely and in the second half in particular, on the second of the four nights run at the Town Hall, won over the audience.

The first half was slow and due to the awful acoustics of the building the words of the songs and choruses were difficult to distinguish.

It would have been better if the cast had been on the stage all the time instead of a lot of the action taking place on a lower apron projecting in front of the stage.

I could not understand why the musicians had amplification, and the speakers buzzed through most of the show, when the cast did not have the benefit.

There were some good individual performances particularly from Howard Wilkinson who played Hamlet, John Yates as Widow Twankey and Barry Mercer who doubled up as Abanazar and Claudius.

I suspect that Chiseldon playwright Mike Williams was poking fun at two great institutions, Shakespeare and traditional panto, when he thought up this hybrid.

After all it takes some getting used to when a pantomime camel comes face to face with Hamlet.

As I said, like the curate's egg it was good in parts.