29 September – 12 November
Directed and choreographed by Matt West, Beauty And The Beast is an exceptionally lavish show blessed with an impressively talented cast. This familiar tale is delivered with great energy and panache. There are dazzling dance sequences, one of which knowingly hearkens back to Busby Berkeley’s extravagant Hollywood style of the 1930s, complete with ostrich feathers. It seems that no expense has been spared, for there’s a live ten-piece orchestra, stunning visual effects, and convincingly detailed vividly contrasting sets. In Stanley A. Meyer’s design Belle’s village is sweetly bucolic, while the Beast dwells in a castle of gothic magnificence. Between the village and the castle lies a dark wood where ravenous wolves lie in wait for unwary travellers.
Courtney Stapleton is a delightful Belle, convincingly in love with books when we first meet her, and equally believable when falling in love with the Beast. Her strength of character is matched by her strength of voice, heard particularly in Act Two’s A Change In Me. She could at times be a little more sweetly toned, but she is portraying a no-nonsense heroine, and her feistiness shines through. As played by Shaq Taylor, the Beast occasionally gives out an impressive angry roar, but he isn’t very scary for long. His underlying insecurity and vulnerability soon come to the fore, making Belle’s sympathy and eventual affection for him entirely believable.
That the Beast is not truly frightening sits well with the general family-friendly tone of the show where the darker elements of the tale are not dwelt on for long. Thus, the preening self-centred Gaston is seen more as a figure of fun than as a murderous villain. In a performance full of impressive physicality and comic detail, Tom Senior plays Gaston’s muscly macho posturing largely for laughs, and it is only late in Act Two that he becomes truly vicious. In a show where all the main characters are vividly portrayed, Senior’s performance is the most impressive.
Further comedy is supplied by the Beast’s staff, all changed by a magic curse into household objects. Particularly enjoyable is Alyn Hawke’s Lumiere, the flirtatious and very French maître d’, who has become a flame-wielding candelabra. More pantomime-like fun comes from Nigel Richards’ Cogsworth, the bossy but kindly major-domo, struggling to come to terms with his gradual transformation into a clock, and appalled to discover he now has a wind-up key in his back. Sam Bailey is an endearing Mrs Potts, housekeeper now teapot, whose touching rendition of Beauty and the Beast is an Act Two highlight.
Quibbles? Well, at times the narrative is swamped by spectacle. There are breath-taking set pieces, but the storyline gets somewhat lost amid all the dance and dazzle. Act One’s Be Our Guest sequence is wonderfully extravagant, but it is overlong for a number delivered by supporting characters. Until Act Two relatively little is seen of the Beast, where the key scene in which Belle introduces him to the joys of reading is over all too quickly. But these are minor flaws in a show that delivers colourful entertainment in spades.
★★★★☆ Mike Whitton, 6th October 2022
Photo credit: Johan Persson
