Theatre 2014: Review One

A Christmas Package, The Blakeney Players, Blakeney. January 2014.

As ever this review cannot be totally impartial as I do know one of the cast.

Wow - what a start to 2014's theatre!

The opening number of this winter's show from the talented Blakeney Players put a lot of professional theatre to shame with the timing and choreography. Apart from at the ballet I don't know that I saw a better dance routine in 2013.

The story as ever is thin but that isn't the point of the play at all, it is about having fun - both for the cast and the audience - and I think that yesterday that was the case completely.  In 90 minutes we moved from dance routines to opera via pop songs and Punch and Judy. The action went from London to Moscow via Paris and Venice and Thunderbird 2 cooked the Christmas turkey in a very clever piece of staging.

The play also had the scariest scene I have ever seen on stage during a musical number where all the female case wore Olivia Newton-John masks and the men John Travolta ones - the result was scarier than any monster Doctor Who have come up with, including the Weeping Angels or the kid in a gas mask...

The scenery wobbled, the jokes were dreadful but as ever the enthusiasm made up for it all. One of the funniest things I've seen since their last play - I already can't wait for the summer show!

some of the cast - photo from the EDP website.