ACT Reviews 2022-2023 Season

to. However, there were omissions such as, no big slap stick scene, and no song sheet, but this was replaced by a take on ‘Play Your Cards Right’, which did engage audience reaction and participation. Quite often the Buttons character is responsible from the get-go in getting the audience involved. Kimberley Ross, certainly did this and kept it going throughout. Every entrance was accompanied with a “Hi, Kids!” which elicited the response back. There was good characterisation and face pulling which endeared her to the audience as she helped Cinders get to the ball. With such a raucous audience it can faze an actor but Kimberley kept control of the

proceedings, and didn’t let the situation get away from her. The bad character, in this case Baroness Tremaine, that we all love to hiss and boo has a similar task. When the audience are in the throes of hissing and booing it is down to them to know when it needs to cease. It was interesting to see Kathryn Shenton take on this role as last year in pantomime she

was the Good Fairy. It was nice to see her ditch her Goody-Two-Shoes persona and bring out her evil side: ofcourse we all know she was acting. Right? Joining the Baroness in the nasty stakes were the two Ugly Step-Sisters, Freckles (Steven Oliver-Grant) and Speckles (Lee Mottershead). For these roles there needs to be a chemistry between the actors, to work the scenes in tandem, maintaining character, and during the scripted dialogue this was the case, but it also has to work when going off script and adding lib. Every line has to be punched out and delivered with the same confidence, at times this did drop. These two though had a ball on stage and worked hard. I did enjoy the attention given to Phil in the audience, this always gets a laugh. Poor Phil, little did he know he would be the centre of attention on a Thursday night.