The Wizard of Oz

a pantomime loosely based on L. Frank Baum's book

seen at the High Cross Church, Camberley, on 2 February 2019

HATS (High Cross Church Amateur Theatrical Society) chose The Wizard of Oz as the basis for this year's pantomime. With typical pantomime exuberance Kansas was replaced by Camberley as Dorothy's home - though the set looked untypically rural - and only two of the songs from the famous film were used. Other musical numbers proliferated, drawn from all sorts of sources of which I remain blithely ignorant.

The jokes are predictably awful and heavily signalled as required of the genre ('way up high' from Over the Rainbow slid effortfully into 'weigh a pie' in later conversation), the story line sentimentally uplifting, the pantomime tropes lovingly tended with a gloriously camp Dame as Glinda the Good Witch of the North (Philip Mann, also the director), a villain to hiss in Alphabet the Wicked Witch of the West (David Everard) and a 'danger' (Quinn Sermon the Cowardly Lion in this case) to warn Dorothy and Toto about. Some excitable boys in the audience were all for cheering the Wicked Witch and scuppering the yells of 'Lion behind you!' but they were having as much fun as everyone else (if not more); and most of the audience had someone on stage to root for. 

Assorted children and teens sported a variety of costumes as Camberley schoolchildren, Munchkins, Emerald City denizens and so forth to perform the chorus numbers, while the principals faced the perils of finding their dreams with commendable determination. In particular Dorothy (Hollie Lindon) had a strong voice and authoritative presence as the heroine, Toto (Emma Kinchin) a stoic loyalty and forbearance at constantly being identified as feline, the Tin Man (Richard Salt) a metallic creakiness and the requisite sentimental streak, and Jonathan Davies (the Scarecrow) had apparently no bones in his body, producing an amazing quantity and quality of gangling pratfalls as often as possible.

A good opportunity for everyone in the company to have fun entertaining their families and friends.