OVER eight days, Burnham District Pantomime Society has been performing its latest pantomime, ‘The Adventures of Sinbad’, at the Princess Theatre & Arts Centre in Burnham.

It was a society-produced production with the script written by members John Holmes, Pat Williams, Mo Bicham and Lorna Blair, who also imaginatively directed the showand brought the whole thing to peak performance level.

The costumes, designed and made by Denise McKenna and her team of ladies, were certainly some of the best I have ever seen.

The scenery was bright, colourfully designed and humorous with lots of interest for the audience and children to laugh at.

The large stage props, from a tepee, a totem pole and a ship’s oven to an igloo, a magic cactus and a mad drinks dispensing machine, were made by the society and worked well.

The backstage crew made the scene changes quickly, quietly and efficiently, and the hand props team made realistic appropriate shackles, pies, pouches and snowballs, and found all that was needed for the plot.

The songs and dances were a good mix of old and new in keeping with the story, and were well performed, especially the chorus numbers.

The dancers from Dance Fit were spot on as always.

The sound and lighting only had the occasional crackle, and considering the short notice of the operators who stepped in at the last minute to help BDPS out they did very well.

The cast all put on sparkling, confident performances and were well chosen for their respective roles.

Rob Blackmore played Roma Lott, the dame, and was certainly a larger-than-life man-eater.

He was hilarious in the slapstick cooking scene with Abanana (Emma Twigg) and Rancid (Nick Elmswood), and, of course, they ended up covered in custard pie.

Mel Shepherd played the Evil Caliph menacingly with aplomb and received lots of deserved boos from the audiences.

Sinbad (Shannon Manlow) and Aisha (Zoe Nicholson) were well matched as the loved up duo and sang well together.

They are certainly ones to watch in future shows, both showing they can handle principal roles, as did Hassan, (Gabrielle Blair) and Leila (Katie Shephard), the other loved up young couple in the storyline.

The storyteller, Lorna Davey, played a magical Arabian with a hand movement many members of the audience were replicating by the end of the showwhen she came on.

Mungo a Monkey (Archie Williams) was loved by the kids in the audience, and talking of youngsters, the junior chorus provided the ‘ahhh!’ factor, especially dressed up as waddling penguins in the frozen wastes scene – a show stealer.

They sang ‘Truly Scrumptious’ with Aisha so sweetly, too, on their spot-on fantasy island.

The minor roles of Slave Master (Greg Fear), Medicine Man (Alistair Murray), Captain Birdseye (Frank Neill) Polar Bear (Greg Fear) and Indian Chief (Frank Neill) were all portrayed expertly.

Overall it was a well directed and rehearsed show, full of fun, song, colour and slapstick – a good traditional panto.

Roll all this together with warm, attentive welcomes and service from front of house, the callers, dressers and chaperones, and you have a wonderful showwell worth the money.

One audience comment overheard sums it up for me: “We laughed until we cried, we sang, we clapped, we shouted, we waved our arms in the air, we took part, we had fun and we thoroughly enjoyed ‘Sinbad’.”

What more can I say?

MAUREEN COOPER