Sleeping Beauty, Tread The Boards
Reviewed 21st December 2025
4/5
Thus Beauty took a little time to wake up.
Written and directed by John-Robert Partridge (who also plays Dame Dotty), the show gets off to a bit of a slow start with a very wordy exchange between Fairy Good and her evil sister Carabosse. Thankfully the pace picks up once we get to the opening number, just a shame there were not a few more dancers to bump up the numbers, although the cast of 9 do all work hard throughout, with even some of the crew being roped in later for a ‘Generation Game’ style sketch.
George Ormerod gets the audience going as Muddles, and works hard to get laughs from the jokes. On the day we reviewed (which was at 11am on a Sunday morning), the small audience were soon on his side.
Abigail Drennan as the Evil Crabosse gave a suitably terrifying performance, with an equally powerful voice. She really drew the boos from the kids who were having a great time. Mark Carey as King Frederick the First tied things together nicely.
All in all there were some great individual performances, but the show was lacking some of that panto magic, and more could have been made of the large stage area which felt a little empty at times.
Sleeping Beauty runs until 31st December