A 'Beauty' of a Cast for The Palace Theatre Newark Panto
/The Palace Theatre’s festive plans are well under way and they are delighted to announce their full cast for this year’s spectacular family panto Beauty and the Beast.
Joining Emmerdale’s Jonathan Wrather is Tim Freeman, who is back by popular demand having played Dame Trot in last year’s production of Jack and the Beanstalk. He is been joined by a host of new faces including Ryan Willis as Dame Dorothy’s daft son Willy Do it, Isabella Rubin as Beauty, David Gilbrook as Beauty’s Father, Jamie Sheerman as Pimple, Adam Pettit as the Beast and Anna Mitcham as the Enchantress.
Tim is delighted be returning to The Palace Theatre to play Dame Dorothy Do It.
“The Palace is such a lovely theatre with a great crew! Best of all though are the Newark audiences who are always up for a laugh! I have some great memories from last year. There was one show when I was chasing Kev (Simple Simon) around with a massive custard pie and I slipped over but the floor was so slippery I just couldn't stand up, when Kev tried to help me he fell over too and we ended sliding all over the place- chaos! And so embarrassing! The audience loved it though and hopefully they thought it was just part of the script!”
“Playing Dame is great as you get to have cheeky laughs with the audience and the rest of the cast! You get to mess around with custard pies as well and get paid for it – what could be better!”
This will be Ryan’s first visit to the Palace Theatre and his fourth professional pantomime having previously appeared in Cinderella and Jack and the Beanstalk in Guildford and Snow White in Nottingham.
Ryan understands the importance of panto on young theatregoers. “The first pantomime I saw as a child was The Wizard of Oz. It was the first theatre show I ever saw and was where my passion for theatre began. Pantomime is often a child’s first introduction to theatre and it is important we give them a fabulous show so they go away wanting to see more live theatre.”
For Jamie Sheerman this will be his second time playing Pimple having appeared in Beauty and the Beast at The Spa Centre in Leamington last year.
“Pimple is the sidekick to Eugene, Jonathan Wrather’s character, in the same way that Lefou is to Gaston in the Disney version. I get some great comedy moments in the show and it is fun being part of a duo as you can play off each other a fair bit as well.”
The show will once again be directed by Mairi Cowieson with choreography by Graeme Pickering. Mairi says “I really enjoy working on the panto in Newark as the town has a real community spirit and the all the venue staff work really hard on the panto and help to make it a great success.”
“It is really exciting to do Beauty and the Beast as the panto this year after the huge popularity of the recent film. The panto version is, of course, very different to the Disney version and has a lot more comedy in it, but the basic story is the same and we know the audiences are going to love it.”
Beauty and the Beast runs from Friday 8 December 2017 until Wednesday 3 January 2018.
