OLD KING COLE A Review of All Saints Theatrical Society production Written and Directed by Tony Edwards from an avid All Saints' fan

'Old King Cole is a simple nursery rhyme about a King, who, we are told, is merry and had three fiddlers. He also required a pipe and bowl but it is never made clear why! So a bit of imagination and enhancement must be required to extract from this sparse information enough material to make a 2 hour pantomime! We had both in abudance with the inclusion of other favourites such as Little Miss Muffet and her Spider, The Gingerbread Man, the Cat that went to London, and a host of other cameo roles. The story was simply that Old King Cole(Brian Foley), (merry only because he kept laughing at his own dire jokes) the Queen (Sheila Clapcott) and the Scruffy Princess (Rachel Eyre) had to go out to work because their money had, apparently, been stolen. It hadn't, of course. They were just being taught a lesson, but the work places they each had to go to were pure theatre, each with its own 'coloured' ambience; red for the Baker's shop, yellow for the Farmyard, and green for the moneylender's office - very effective, all enhanced by a ticking, remote controlled self moving clock! Some excellent characterisations - Screege, (Richard Fudge) the villain, had a door that creaked alarmingly - but he shouldn't have blamed the audience for making rude noises! Little Miss Muffet (Louisa Blakey) was a raucous force to be reckoned with, ending up chasing the Spider and cats and mice all over the place. The Gingerbread didn't run as fast as he thought he could, and ended up in the Baker's window to be sold (Ahh) Perhaps the highlight was the Scruffy Princess, who brought the house down with her screeching, tuneless and off-key rendition of "I don't know what I can do about it" (I can't live, if living is without you). Fast paced, with plenty of audience interaction, visually excellent and very funny - it was obviously enjoyed by the cast and the audience alike. Unfortunately, I'll remember some of those jokes to my dying day!