Beauty and the Beast
EPSOM PLAYHOUSE
With the return of live theatre welcomed by all, get ready for the ‘Beauty’ of all Pantomimes, taking you on a magical journey packed with comedy, great music, dazzling stage sets and of course, a fabulously talented cast!
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The host of talent includes former EastEnder Ricky Groves along with an impressive array of performers from local dance schools and Theatre & Performance Arts Colleges including renowned Laine Theatre Arts.
Beauty and the Beast at Epsom Playhouse was my first venture into working in a professional theatre environment as well as in pantomime and also in a COVID conscious setting. It involved me commuting every day from Guildford and working on up to three shows a day on a new and challenging schedule.
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I was working as part of a team of five crew and joined them for two weeks over the festive period to assist them through previews and into the run, helping with preparations including fixing up and assembling set pieces as well as prepping the stage, and sourcing props.
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My track included a lot of fast-paced scene changes involving large flats and large set pieces including a bar, a rostra and a staircase which had to be assembled/disassembled within every change, as well as working with other typical panto related props such as re-filling water pistols and positioning a crash mat for a wall-falling skit.
A view from SR wing of the cast rehearsing the wall falling skit.
The set up from the opening scene 'Gaston's Karaoke Bar'
The prompt desk in SR.
A flyer for the show on display in the Ashley Centre
One of my main highlights from my time working on the show was a skit featured in the second act involving a kabuki drop of one of scene cloths. In which the cloth was fall from the flys and reveal the crew "in the middle of a scene change" where we would freeze and then frantically resume the change and exit into the wings before a new cloth was brought in and the show continued much to the amusement - if not slight confusion - of the audience .
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All in all, I had a great time over my two weeks in Epsom and took away lots of valuable experience from my first venture into pantomime.