Shenanigans aplenty as Mother Goose entertains the crowds

YOU know the Christmas season has well and truly started when the annual civic pantomime lifts up the curtain on a feast of festive entertainment for all the family, writes Andy Turner.

This year’s shenanigans start at Mother Goose’s Goosery before stopping off at the Bog of Beauty where Dame Sheila Dagmar Gunhilda Goose (Steve Kray) is tricked into giving up Heidi the golden egg laying Goose to Smorg (Eva Crawford), the villainous troll, in return for a miraculous makeover.

Throw in a classic love story and excellent vocals from the Dame’s daughter Freya (Jourdan Amelia Storey) and Sven (Brandon Gale) – nephew of baddie Baron Von Rumpens- makka (Joshua Lloyd) and his hilariously dumb side-kick Gonk (Scott Livingstone) – and you have got all the ingredients for a fun-filled night packed with audience participation.

The enthusiastic cast are backed by an impressive chorus of dancers in what is a thoroughly professional show complete with lavish costumes, great sets and songs to get the audience evening.

The numbers start with Dame, to the tune of ‘ Fame’ from the Kids from Fame and go on to include Take That’s ‘Shine,’ the incredibly festive ‘Walking in the Air,’ complete with snowmen, and the show stopping ‘River Deep, Mountain High’ as good conquers bad and the villains are shown singing along all the errors of their ways to prove that beauty and wealth cannot bring you everything.

There’s an entertaining interlude that always goes down a storm with the kids with luminous puppets dancing in the pitch black but the life and soul of the party is the gruff and rather rotund gentleman of a certain age dressed in a frock.

In his seventh year at The Civic Hall, having played Corah in last year’s production of Cinderella and Trot in the previous year’s Jack and the Beanstalk to name just two, Kray is a classic dame and the glue that holds the whole show together, ably assisted by the dastardly double-act Baron and Gonk. A must see this Christmas. Runs until December 29. Rating 4/5

The cast of Mother Goose, a pantomime produced and directed by Burbage-based Tim Norton, which is running at The Civic Hall in Bedworth until December 29 2017. Picture: Will Farndon