"Beauty & The Beast" by Bingham Musical Theatre Company (BMTC).
This is my first visit to Bingham Arena, so was excited to see the venue as well as this pantomime. This is a lovely venue with lots of car parking space and all the facilities of a leisure centre as well as a beautiful theatre setting. The stage was a lot bigger than I had expected as well.
The story has been re-imagined by Ben Bradley and Emily Hudson so does not include all of the characters that we know from the traditional story.
I got the feeling that there were a few nerves with the cast, but by the second act, those nerves diminished and they started to enjoy what they were doing. That is when I started to feel comfortable and started to relax into the show. Some of the newer characters I felt needed defining a bit more so that we knew who they were, and their roles.
Belle is played by Eloise Lowe, who I last saw on stage in "Grease" at the Nottingham Arts Theatre. Eloise has a lovely voice and looks gorgeous in the gold number she wears later in the show. Her version of "I Know I Have A Heart" from Andrew Lloyd-Webber's "Cinderella" is absolutely beautiful.
Sam Middleton plays Prince Fernando and this is his debut for Bingham Musical Theatre Company, as well as his debut as a performer in musical theatre. I felt nerves from Sam, but who, on their debut would not be nervous? Well cast for the Prince as he's good looking and he has charisma, and a really expressive face. The transformation from Prince to Beast, and back again, was done very well, hidden first by the ensemble dancers and the reverse masked by pyrotechnics.
By the second part, Sam seemed to have lost any nerves that he had and that is when he looked more at ease, and everything felt so much more comfortable.
Emma Robinson plays Beatrix. Beatrix is one of Belle's sisters, but is also the nasty character who puts the spell on The Prince to try and make Belle see what an arrogant and rude Prince he is, to try and convince her that she is not The Prince's true love. Beatrix is one of those characters that needed an early definition, in my opinion, but when it was revealed that she was the evil character, that is when we started to invest in the evilness of the character.
Emma actually makes a really believable baddie and she looked as if she was enjoying playing the role; the baddies are always the meatiest and most fun roles an actor can wish for, and she cracked that baddie role for me.
James Sikora is Silly Billy, who makes his debut for Bingham Musical Theatre Company, a decade after his last musical theatre appearance. Like Beatrix, Billy, and this is just my opinion, needed the character defining from the start as to who the character is. It didn't take too long though for us to realise that Billy is the character we need to shout for when he came on stage. 
James is wonderful as Billy; his radiant smile never leaving his face and soon made that connection with the younger audience members. He has a natural clown's face and can easily perform knockabout comedy. Now, I am not sure if this was supposed to be part of the act, but in the second act Billy had a pair of crutches. There was a loud bang off stage towards the end of the first act but, at the time did not associate the two. Hopefully, these were just a prop. If not, I hope that it doesn't affect James' performance tomorrow.
Paul Green plays Barbie, another one of Belle's sisters. Paul has a talent for physical comedy and this character is all visual comedy. Dressed as Barbie - the doll - the fuller figure version is such a comical image, and Paul is a confident enough actor to bring the comedy in this image to life, and what makes it even more comical is that Paul has not shaven off his facial hair, but added sparkle to it. 
Caroline Morley is Britney, Belle's other sister. In the programme, Caroline's age is revealed, which came as quite a surprise as she looks half of the printed age and easily passed as Belle's sister. Loved this character, great make up, wonderful costume and you could tell that Caroline has had musical theatre experience, and that it has not left her.
Mandy Simons is Marinara, Belle's Mother. Another well written character and not as nasty as I had been expecting. Lovely voice, that comes from a history of performing with bands and choirs.
The Cook is played by Alicia Richardson; this is her first pantomime after appearing in several other theatrical productions. A very novel costume design for The Cook when the evil spell had been cast, so much so that it made me feel quite peckish!
Victoria Goodwin plays Frederick - the Aide. I loved watching Vicki because her characterisation was just so good. She gave the feeling that all of the orders from the pre-evil spell Prince were way below her pay scale, but she soon moves up the table! A really nice comedy performance from Vicki and one of my favourite roles in this re-imagining.
The adult ensemble is made up of Vicki Reckless, Lynsey Osbourne, Katie Lister, Annabelle Black and Sophie Wallis.
There are two children's groups, Team Thorn and Team Rose, and tonight (Thursday) I saw Team Thorn who are Beatrice, Alisia, Ellie, Olivis, Georgia, Scarlett, Ebony and Tegan.
Directed by Ben Bradley, there were just a few places that needed tightening up for me, but this is opening night and with the nerves, I expected a few scenes that would seem a few seconds longer than maybe in rehearsals. I have no doubt that, now the first night is over, that natural shrinkage will happen, so I don't worry over that. 
Written by Ben Bradley and Emily Hudson, the jokes, most of them, hit home; you can never fully tell until they are delivered to a live audience just how effective they are, but it was nice to hear new topical jokes included amid some that I had heard before.
Choreographed by Jennifer Reckless. This ensemble, both adult and younger teams delivered some nicely executed moves with lovely enthusiasm and energy, and with smile son their faces.
The music is backing tracks, which means that the actors have to hit their cues, and they did. I'm not a massive fan of backing tracks but a live band does not come cheap, so these alternatives are needed to make sure the show goes on. 
The sound to start with was too loud, with a fear of drowning out the vocals, and then in the second act, I would have liked the sound to have been a bit louder as it was too low in the mix. There were a few missed mic cues, but as I was only in the third row from the stage, I could hear what the actors were saying until the mics were turned up.
Again, it's opening night and the sound equalisation, I am sure, will be balanced perfectly for the rest of the run. I have heard Dominic Mills operate sound before and has got it spot on, so I think it may be just getting used to the sound mixer at Bingham Arena.
James Bennett's lighting design was very good, and I liked the spotlight work, especially with the focus on Belle for the aforementioned "I Know I Have A Heart". We were all really focused on Belle thanks to that spotlight.
A great set design which set the scenes perfectly.
The costumes are designed by Amanda Warriner, and you can see the work that has gone into all of these costumes.
I touched on the make up earlier and Sarah Vinter's make up design is typical panto; just as it should be. Perfect.
I know that local theatre groups only have limited time scales for their "get in", and that includes the sound and light people, so I do appreciate that opening nights can be a testing ground and to get everything spot on. Everything got more natural and more relaxed as the show progressed and by the end everything had settled down, so from Friday's performance, you'll be in for a cracking and funny new version of the classic fairy tale.
"Beauty & the Beast" will be performed at Bingham Arena until Saturday 9 December but at the last count every performance is sold out, so it may be worth checking for any return tickets, just in case.
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