By Mick Brian
photos by Chris Watkins Media
Disney aficionados will need no introduction to “The Little Mermaid,” Disney’s 1989 film about mermaids falling in love with humans based very loosely on Hand Christian Anderson’s tale. By 2007 Disney had crated a stage musical version which officially opened on Broadway in 2008, with a later modification in 2012. But what Broadway can do, Trowbridge can do too, and this week Trowbridge Musical Theatre (a.k.a. TMT ) bring “The Little Mermaid” all the way from New York City and an undersea kingdom to St. Augustine’s Catholic College for our delectation.
This is a challenging production to pull off, with a huge cast, and multiple characters and costume changes, massive choreography numbers and immensely technical requirements, but TMT manage it sublimely in a packed and fast paced show. With a cast so vast its not feasible to list every single person sadly but it is fair to say that everybody involved brought something special to the performance. Added to which a brave decision to play it with American accents as per Broadway worked really well – kudos to all for not grating, and being thoroughly believable as sons and daughters of Uncle Sam.
Lets begin with the orchestra – with ten musicians and Kate Courage M.D. you can already appreciate the scale of this production. From the opening marvellous overture to the last note the orchestra were simply great.
The technical team brought the stage craft to life aided and abetted by some wonderful directorial touches by director Matthew Heaton… the pièce de resistance being the beautifully simple yet effective use of wave sheets to represent the sea, operated excellently by the younger members of the cast and especially effective in the ship wreck scene – top waving by Emmi-Mae Cao, Elsie Cunningham, Iris Cunningham and Sam Hodgman. More kudos to the tech team and set designers with excellent projected backdrops and a few simple but effective set pieces.
Of the principals all provided great characterisation. Alex Ball as Flounder was a standout performance, Noah Heard as Eric executed his role as a prince falling in love at first sight to perfection with a voice that was creamy, dreamy and effortless with great diction, voice agility and ability. Triton’s daughters (all seven of them) proved wonderfully catty in their roles, and collectively strong with a great sound.
The evergreen Tim Hobbs was as brilliantly crabby as he ever is as Sebastian with some wonderful comedic touches, while Sarah Davies diva’d her way fantastically through the show as the wickedly creepy Ursula, with her wonderfully strong voice as ever.
She was superbly accompanied by the dynamic duo of Frankie Walker and Daisy Woodruffe as Flotsam and jetsam, Ursula’s henchmen eels who worked really well together. Ariel was the archetypal Disney princess portrayed to a tee by Katy Pattinson – gorgeous and tiny, with such a pretty voice and moved about the stage nicely. Her chemistry with Eric was particularly good, and as a pair the complemented each other well. Her Act two performance in particular as a mute was really well executed with some strong physical acting, communicating superbly with facial expressions. Her scene of learning to walk was choreographed and performed extremely well.
Which brings us to the ensemble. Oh. My. Word. Ensembles make or break a show and here was a show that was made. Extremely strong in everything they did, they deserve a full bow of their own for the multiple costume and character changes required, as they sang, danced, and acted their way through being gulls, maids, sailors, chefs, princesses and the already praised “Wave” team. A specific mention here to Paul West as Scuttle the head gull with a strong comedic lead. But all members of this vast ensemble were worthy of their places I hasten to say!
Choreography by Anna Mazan was a huge feature of the show, and the time and effort put in by her and her protégés was evident. “Under The Sea” was a triumph – fantastic, energetically colourful, a massive carnival with bubble machines, jellyfish parasols and so much more in a cavalcade of splendour. You’d need to watch it many times over to catch everything that was happening on stage.
Costumes were simply fantastic. Just wonderful. A little fish told me that they weren’t without some teething problems on their arrival, but the wardrobe team did the cast proud. Chapeau!! (If you will pardon the pun).
It’s a huge show. And its running in Trowbridge, at St. Augustine’s Catholic College until Sunday 3rd November, tickets from https://trowbridgemusicaltheatre.co.uk/tickets/
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