Musical Madness

Pastiche Musical Theatre
Compass Theatre, Ickenham
Thurs 25th - Sat 27th July 2013

Pastiche Musical Theatre presented their annual summer concert, Musical Madness, at the Compass Theatre in Ickenham, this year to raise money for the Renal Unit at Hammersmith Hospital. This choice of recipient was suggested after the recent passing of Joyce Harkness who was sister to Jean Hobson, one of the founders of Pastiche Musical Theatre. Joyce was for many years an active member of Pastiche and in latter years ran the box office. Over the fifteen years since its formation, Pastiche has raised over £51,000 for a range of charities and organisations.

The summer concert is traditionally a collection of music, song and dance from The West End, Broadway and Hollywood with a few novelties, music hall numbers and personal favourites thrown in. After the rousing opening number 'Shine' their youngest member, Eva Rigby made her solo debut with ‘Hi Diddley Dee’ from Pinnochio. On this showing Eva is surely going on to a long and distinguished career as a performer. The girls of the group performed a highly innovative dance routine to the 'Benny Hill' theme, where they were all dressed in a split black and white costumes and all standing in line next to each other gave an unusual visual illusion - I guess you had to be there, but the crowd certainly loved it.

The ladies came up trumps again with a lovely rendition from Miss Saigon, 'Movie in My Mind' with haunting harmonies. Another youngster, Duncan Austin, gave us a spirited 'Any Dream Will Do' from Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat again with a harmonious backing from group members.

After the break, we were all taken down memory lane with a 'Wartime Medley' which included 'Roll Out The Barrel', 'A Nightingale Sang in Berkley Square', 'White Cliffs of Dover' and 'Lambeth Walk'. Later, Eva Rigby was up again this time joined by her mum Jenny and sister Megan in 'Shrek: I know it's today'. Before the finale Ian Collyer got the audience to join him an old music hall number 'Two Lovely Black Eyes'. The final song was a number unfamiliar to many, 'Shine on Down' written by Daniel Boys for a musical called 'Teatro' and had a rousing finale feel.

The whole show was varied, flowed very well and was thoroughly entertaining, there was certainly something for everyone in the programme and included performers from ages 7 to 70. Pastiche will be back at the Compass Theatre next March 2014, when they present their next Musical, 'Thoroughly Modern Millie'. More information about the work of Pastiche and the Charities that they support can be found at www.pastichemusicaltheatre.co.uk

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Simon Tidball

Musical Mischief

A New Page for Pastiche
 
The page turned for the Pastiche Musical Theatre Company at the end of July, with Roma Ridley taking over the reins from her Mother, Jean Hobson, who had overseen productions for 20 years.
 
Roma, working with Musical Director Jean George proved that they could maintain those high standards with an excellent, light-hearted Musical Mischief show featuring some superb performances from the Company. Considering this is an amateur Company who only rehearse a very limited number of hours per week the quality of the overall performance was outstanding with an energetic cast who were thoroughly enjoying themselves, evident by the smiling, enthusiastic faces on stage throughout.
 
The two, hour-long Acts contained a varied mix performances from dancers, singers and musical instruments to the varied tastes of the young and old.
The evening started strongly with an entertaining opening ‘Broadway Medley’, which gave all the singers a chance to warm up their vocal chords and show off some well timed choreography (which proved to be of a high quality and varied throughout the show- including novelty acts such as a glow in the dark hand jive)!
 

The costumes have always been an impressive ingredient of Pastiche’s shows and the opening chorus was followed by a number which gave us our first taste of what was to come - a Lion King inspired lion’s outfit worn by the lead Duncan. He, Megan and Molly showed a glimpse of the future - next stop the X Factor perhaps?!
 
The Company were soon back on stage with Ben leading a confident rendition of ‘The Candy Man’. This young man is a valuable new addition to The Company, looking clearly comfortable on stage and delivering a high quality first performance.
 
Several entertaining numbers followed, including a funny rendition of ‘Plant A Radish’ led by Maxwell and Brian, a humorous and assured Mrs Worthington from Bryan, a passionate performance of ‘Gimme, Gimme, Gimme’ by Shivashtie, Debbie and Stephanie (who goes from strength to strength in every Pastiche show), a faultless Trumpet piece from Max that brought even further variation to the show, followed by a moment of pure class with Naomi playing a beautiful piece on her violin. Entitled ‘Meditation’, the soaring music was perfectly complemented by Megan’s confident ballet steps in the background.
Male attention in the audience was then peaked with a saucy ‘Lady Marmalade’, performed by Claire, Jenny and Gilly, who also choreographed the raucous routine.

The first half concluded with the Company performing the 60’s rock number ‘Proud Mary’ before everyone took a well-earned 15 minute breather.
Act Two kicked off with another ‘Broadway Medley’, before Richard Connolly continued the American theme with a fantastic rendition of ‘Mr Bojangles’. Richard was clearly very comfortable on stage and had a number of ladies in the audience swooning with his swagger and cheeky smile. The performance was also visually entertaining as Richard was accompanied on stage by an ever bright and talented Melanie James who showed through her tap routine that she is an accomplished dancer as well as singer.

One of the high points of the evening was yet to come however, as Naomi performed a show-stopping rendition of ‘Over The Rainbow’, delivering the tricky piece note-perfect and leaving the audience in awe! Other stand out vocals came from two Company members who never fail to deliver professional standard performances- Claire singing The Wizard and I from Wicked and Olivia who silenced the audience with I Don’t Know How To Love Him.

With the final ensemble number ‘Never Forget’ raising the roof, the crowd clapped their way off into the night, discussing highlights and favourite numbers from the varied programme.

As ever, the performances helped raise funds for a good cause, with The Dyspraxia Foundation being the worthy beneficiary on this occasion. After the success of the show, there will not be much rest for Roma, Jean and the Company, as they start to rehearse soon for their eagerly awaited next show - Carousel - which will premiere in March 2012. On this evidence, it cannot come around quick enough!

Tessa Wright