Date Reviewed: 22nd October, 2008
Venue: Palace Theatre

With a ready-made audience of tinies who love the animated Disney classic, the stage adaptation of Beauty and the Beast has a lot to live up to. Thankfully this musical not only matches it, but in many ways is superior. In fact my eight year old daughter, who finds the film a bit boring, loved this stage show.

This is a faithful adaptation of the cartoon; taking the same familiar plot, songs and even costumes. Laura Clement as Belle shines like a true star. She lights the stage from the first time she appears till the final curtain. She has a pure singing voice, combined with the ability to create sweetness without being saccharine, and therefore makes the character more fully rounded than in the film.

Matthew Cammelle as the Beast is commanding in both figure and voice. He ably portrays the volatile emotions of the character despite being buried under the necessary heavy costume.

Ben Harlow as Gaston and Conleth Kane as Lefou make an excellent double act. Harlow is delightfully over the top, striking all the right poses as the egotistical would-be suitor while Kane displays superb comic timing reminiscent of Ronnie Corbett in his heyday.

Special mention must also be made of  Ben Stock (Lumiere),  Ashley Knight (Cogsworth) and Orla Mullan (Mrs Potts) who  keep the plot rolling along smoothly. All three are equally strong, but the character of Stock’s Lumiere was especially good at prompting the children’s laughter. His jokes and hip movements provide enough physical comedy to keep the adults smiling also.

The show is full of lighting flashes, fireworks and special effects such as the beast’s change into the Prince. These are excellently done, many drawing applause from the audience. The set, designed by Charles Camm, moves seamlessly from village, to wood, to castle through the use of clever screen projections and large pieces of set.

My only complaint with the entire show was that there were many times that the orchestra drowned out the lyrics of the actors. Whether this is an imbalance in the building acoustics when sitting in the front stalls or simply a sound problem, it is still a disappointing fact that parts of the songs are indecipherable.

As the Palace Theatre might say “Be our guest!” Grab a tiny Disney fan and go and see this tale as old as time!

-Helen Jones

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 at 4:33 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.