Sleeping Beauty by Campus West
Reviewed 27 December 2023
5/5
There’s nothing sleepy about this beauty of a panto!
Yet again, Campus West have come up with a spectacular family pantomime that simply rips along and keeps everyone entertained.
With another winning script by Jonas Cemm (who also directs) and Joe Sergent (who also plays King Wally of Welwyn), the audience are treated to non-stop action and plenty of suitably bad jokes, mainly delivered by Kieran Parrott as Chester the Jester, as he was given the task of delivering a knock-knock joke every time he entered that stage!
Sleeping beauty can be a difficult story with the title character going from a baby to her 18th birthday, and then of course the 100 year sleep. Jonas and Joe covered these time lapses nicely with a couple of clever tricks which we won’t give away here, but would keep Dr Who happy!
Speaking of tricks, Lawrence Harp as Prince Harry of Hatfield had a few up his sleeve, especially as part of the birthday ‘entertainment’, and a pleasant voice too.
It was nice to see Rowan Kitchen return as Fairy Merryweather, blowing the roof off with her simply stunning vocals. Her rendition of ‘Holding out for a Hero’ was something else. Mind you, she had good competition from Rebecca Withers as the evil Carabosse, both character wise and vocally. Her cackle was ear piecing.
It would have been nice to see some more ‘slosh’ in the slosh scene, but it was a small issue in what was otherwise a fantastic show, and without a TV star in sight! They certainly kept a full house very happy.
Sleeping Beauty runs at Campus West, Welwyn Garden City until 5 January 2025