Review: Sleeping Beauty, Sheffield City Hall

Manor Operatic Society has a well-deserved reputation for producing high quality, professional-standard pantomimes and selling them out. Sleeping Beauty fully lives up to all those high expectations. 

The set is visually stunning, depicting Sleeping Beauty’s castle with entrances on two levels. City Hall is a colossal theatre seating over 2,200 and the stage is huge. It would be a tall order for any company to do it full justice, let alone a local amateur society. But Manor is no ordinary society and it’s very clear to see that they have invested a good deal of funds into this production. It is full of gloss and polish with some impressive visual effects and stunning pyrotechnics.

The opening number sees the ensemble resplendent in beautifully fitting, brightly coloured costumes. Indeed the costumes are elegant and attractive throughout, with many changes. Fairy Sweet is beautiful, entering in a fabulous red gown, but Katie Ann Dolling surprises by playing her for laughs with a consistent comedy Liverpool accent. Her comic timing is very good and she engages well with the full house from the start. She often speaks in rhyme, but her delivery is clever and natural so the rhythm doesn’t get in the way of the text. She also has an excellent singing voice and her renditions of ‘Dreamgirls’ and ‘Hushabye Mountain’ with fellow fairies Sorbet and Sundae (Ro Rostant and Paige Benison) are delightful, with beautifully blended harmonies.

Witch Sour is the villain, played well by Emily Mae Hoyland who more than holds her own in the vocal and comic stakes. Her stage presence is larger than life and there were references during the show to her being Manor’s regular villain. It’s easy to see why. Her scene with excellent backing dancers, a large animatronic dragon and fireballs pulsing from the front of the stage was a highlight.

All the characters are named after desserts and ice creams. The Dame is Nurse Knickerbocker Glory (or Nurse Knickers for short) and her son is Muddles McFlurry. They are played by Chris Hanlon and Stuart Daniel-Box, both very accomplished performers who are comfortable ad-libbing and being on stage alone chatting to the audience. The usual panto business is all done well. At one point Hanlon gives a big red buzzer to a man in the audience and tells him to press it when the panto is ready to party. The buzzer goes off at the point where the princess pricks her finger, to great comic effect.

The principal girl and boy are Princess Tutti Fruity and Prince Nobblybobbly played by Georgia Ryder and Dylan Lambert. They do well in their somewhat underwritten roles, with initial comedy turning very suddenly to romance. Both have strong singing voices which carry them through and keep the audience engaged.

It is clear that there are some Manor panto traditions which the regular audience has come to expect. The scary scene song is ‘Tinky Winky Woo’ which much of the audience cheered for. The monsters are actors in Donald Trump and Keir Starmer masks, which the adults in tonight’s audience found funny, especially when Trump did his famous ‘dance’. However, the children didn’t recognise them and it was hard for the actors to get the usual ‘the monster took him’ responses from them.

Manor Operatic Society has spared no expense delivering a professional standard production in a stunning theatre with a hugely talented cast. With all the popular elements of panto, colour and laughter, what’s not to love?

Directed and Produced by Richard Bradford
Directed and Choreographed by Linda Kelly
Musical direction by Andy Collis
Assisted by Jack Wheatley
Dance Captain: Evie May Bradford
Sound by Dave Gregory Productions
Pyrotechnics supplied and installed by Hands on Productions and Promotions
Costumes by Molly Limpets Theatrical Emporium, Sheffield

Sleeping Beauty plays at Sheffield’s City Hall until Sunday 4 January.