Even the lure of Six Nations rugby found it hard to compete with the talent and buffoonery of this annual fixture.
Prince Charles lookalike King Hugo opened the show with his beautifully sequinned Queen (“Camilla, um, I mean Matilda”) looking for a nanny for their baby Princess Rose, when Dave Buckland bounded onto the stage in an eye-wateringly colourful dame costume and announced that he was the ideal Royal Nanny Cecilia, better known as Silly, who wanted to work at the castle to be closer to the knight-life.
But “Why do you want to kiss my hand, is my face dirty?”
Cecilia had tried be an archaeologist but that career ended in ruins, and then a postman, but got the sack.
To the music of Shalamar’s A Night to Remember, they tell of Jack the Kipper, who terrorises fish, and the new fashion of open-toad sandals for frogs, in front of a backdrop of a sun-dappled woodland glade that did fine justice to the quality of the costumes that the Selborne Players always achieve.
Young fairies gracefully danced to the Sugar Plum Fairy soundtrack before the bad witch, Lick Weed, aka Fairy Liquid, bounded onto the stage in a cloud of lightning flashes and black sparkles, looking for seclusion – has Seclusion got lost then? ask the fairies, and the action continued to Michael Jackson’s I’m Bad.
The talented singer who had been booked for the evening couldn’t come, so Andy from Preston, the George Michael lookalike, stood in for him with Wham’s Wake Me Up Before You Go Go, and he was good.
The talented young dancers took to the stage to the music of LunchMoney Lewis’s I’ve Got Bills I’ve Gotta Pay, Whose Shoes Ain’t Got No Soul, then Pharrell Williams’ I’m Happy, and after the knights got involved in a mix-up about letting them have it with pies, we heard Welcome to the House of Fun by Madness, and although the castle was “so last century”, the music transformed the village hall into just that with the evil witch casting a shadow over proceedings to the tune of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
At the interval, the audience was sprinkled with fairy dust for happy dreams as 100 years elapsed in an eruption of activity as the scene changed to the spidery castle interior, the mystery spinner, and the “weaselly” apprentices did their work to the music of Let’s do the Timewarp Again, from the Rocky Horror Show, after which the knights and Cecilia were recalled for an encore, and then came the theme tune from the A-Team and later the Benny Hill chase music Yakkety Sax as the magic sword was retrieved, and then the soundtrack was Alice Cooper’s opening song Poison from the Raise the Dead tour.
The action fairly rocketed along and the Monkees’ Daydream Believer accompanied the princess waking up from her spell-bound sleep.
There was a different hand at the tiller in this production, the director was Nicholas James with Simon Downing being the lightening conductor since he is extra busy with a Phoenix Theatre production this year.
Musical director was Dave Henderson, while other production roles went to Geraldine Dawson (wardrobe), Jan Earney (choreography), Sally Geoghegan (set design); Doug Allan and Julie Rebbeck (set build); Selborne Arms and Selborne Stores (ticket sales); Jenny Thompson (properties); Tom Maltby and Connor Turner (stage hands), and Tracey Buckland (bar).
The Cast:?Princess Rose, Kaitlin McConnell; Prince Valiant, Kimberley James; Robin Merryman, Jo Graham; Simon the Squire, Katie Henderson; Cecilia, David Buckland; Lick Weed, Simone Knol; Sir Prance-a-Lot, Chris Bands; Sir Arfur Brain, Gareth Davies; The Herald, Lilly Buckland; King Hugo, Ronnie Davidson-Houston; Queen Matilda, Jan Earney; Sir Silent, Nicholas James; Sir Less Dread, Eric Rye Lees; Sir More Dread, Charlie Henderson; Fairy &?Woman: Lucy Bicknell, Lily Maltby, Sasha Roberts, Lola Wills, Maya Wills; Fairy Berry, Ellie Roberts; Fairy Cherry, Martha Rye Lees, and George Michael Look-alike, Andy from Preston.
Gwyneth Rushton
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