First Mossley panto for years a success

Ruby Slippers production company brought back pantomime to Mossley, putting on three sellout performances.

Dick Whittington was on the roster last weekend at the George Lawton Hall, marking the first time pantomime had been in Mossley since pre – COVID times. There were four showings of the production on the 13th and 14th, and the matinee performances held at 7pm were at maximum capacity.

 The show had a large mixture of people in the audience, ranging from kids to the parents and the elderly. In true pantomime fashion, the show catered well to this audience and gave the viewers a range of jokes aimed at all the ages. There were dances aplenty taking place on stage as well, as new and old cast members displayed well-rehearsed routines to a range of musical backings.

Credit also goes to the live music backing from the chorus as well, which was used to back many of the tracks with bass guitar and drums. This worked the best when singing took place on stage, with the actors putting on captivating performances which married well amongst the instrumental backing.

We spoke with Cameron Kennedy, the cast member who played Idle Jack, to get the opinion on the performance from one of the team members. “I think it went well considering the time frames we had to work in, it is not easy to turn a 1-hour long pantomime with 6 people in into a full pantomime with a chorus and multiple new cast members and scenes.”

The performance that Ruby Slippers put on last weekend was one that they were touring local schools with over the festive period and was therefore shorter and included a smaller cast and set design. This meant that Ruby Slippers had their work cut out for them taking the production to a bigger stage anyway, and Cameron then told us how they faced even more of a challenge due to facing a short turnaround time to get it ready for the big stage, saying “we also had a big location change as we could only get onto the stage at the hall on Thursday evening, and we going onto the stage in front of the audience on Saturday.”

But the team defied the odds, with the performance being at maximum capacity for the matinee performances on each night. Cameron talked about the success, saying “it seemed to go down a treat, we have had nothing but positive feedback and for such a big capacity crowd and to sell as many tickets as we did is special.”

For Ruby Slippers, the George Lawton was one of the biggest stages for many of the cast members and it was a new challenge for many of them to face. But everyone overcame this well, and Cameron spoke on this saying I think every play comes with its challenges, it depends on how long you have been doing it of course for but the stage being the size it was makes the job that bit more challenging. It was a good feeling and it was exciting. The biggest challenge was putting it together in two days, obviously we rehearsed but getting it on stage that fast was a challenge. All the kids worked so hard, all the principles worked so hard and as a team I think we pulled off something quite special.”

With a great performance, it is safe to say that pantomime has landed firmly back in Mossley once again. Cameron echoed his excitement of having performed at the prime location, and concluded by saying “I am back at the George Lawton again this year for West Side Story, but should the opportunity arise for us to take pantomime back to the George Lawton next year, we would not turn that opportunity down.”