FringeReview UK 2025
Beauty and the Beast New Wolsey, Ipswich
A New Wolsey Theatre Production
Genre: Adaptation, Children's Theatre, Comedy, Costume, Family, LGBTQ+ Theatre, Live Music, Mainstream Theatre, Musical Theatre, New Writing, Theatre
Venue: New Wolsey Theatre Ipswich
Festival: FringeReview UK
Low Down
Splice a bit of Sleeping Beauty with Beauty and the Beast and you get Vikki Stone’s sassily inverted recipe. The Rock Beauty and the Beast plays at the New Wolsey Theatre Ipswich directed by Jake Smith till January 17. Hex it isn’t: it’s rather more inventive, less magnificent, and knows what it is.
Possibly the best pantomime now playing, it proves Stone is currently the queen of writing and scoring pantos.
Review
How does Beauty become Princess Charming and rescue a thousand-year-old enchanted prince? Except he’s not sleeping but turned into a bit of a beast. So splice a bit of Sleeping Beauty with Beauty and the Beast and you get Vikki Stone’s sassily inverted recipe. And innovatively fusing panto with rock. The Rock’n’ Roll Beauty and the Beast plays at the New Wolsey Theatre Ipswich directed by Jake Smith till January 17.
Hex it isn’t: it’s rather more inventive, less magnificent, and knows what it is. Though family-designed, there’s cascades of jokes adults will catch; with a liberal spray of scatology children will certainly whoop up. Marking 25 years of the New Wolsey panto, It’s a Christmas-sparkling must-see in person or on livestream.
Stone’s known for shows and original music for Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Hey Duggee Live, all recently; and made her directing debut Stalled at King’s Head Theatre. Though most of the music is pop standards, Stone composes a little original music here too. I wish she might have composed one or two more songs: they hug her plotline neatly and aren’t just slotted in. Still, panto needs its well-loved standards, and given her schedule, Stone mightn’t have had time.
There’s a sort of Sleeping Beauty prologue where a king won’t allow Snarlina (a literally spellbinding Signe Larsson) to use the facilities, so gets transformed into Beast (Neil Urquhart, one who wields a mean electric guitar); with a lot of Callum MacDonald’s emerald lighting. MacDonald’s lighting’s up there with the best touring musicals, at moments flowing round the arches and obscuring backdrops; at others more intimate. That’s also a tribute to Libby Todd’s set and costumes. They make a maximum costume impact (especially birds and feathers) in a swept stage with psychedelic cobbles and an array of lit arches, platforms and balustrades leading to a raised upstage and trapdoor. Pub interiors drop down too. There’s even more spotlighting and effects in Act Two.
We cut to Belle (Nis Raza Hamilton) full of appealing wannabe and stuck: beginning with ‘One Way or Another’ though Dolly Parton’s ‘Nine to Five’ sets the scene. Belle Ringer (geddit?) who actually stacks shelves at night with only a pigeon for a friend, has a plan: to attract friends and a lover she’ll make a podcast about… Ipswich. ‘I’m So Excited’ follows. Most of Hamilton’s come early and late, showcasing her fine lyric soprano. Paul Schofield’s musical arrangements are beautifully tailored for space and voice. Vocally everything’s ideally clear – shout out to Matthew Tuckey’s sound design. Belle’s sceptical friend Pigeon (Eloise Richardson, whacky coloratura) with her coo and calls of nature (it’s a theme) is a bit sceptical. Even more so is her mother Mrs Ringer (Max Gallagher, also cheery MC and accordion virtuoso) who thinks Belle can meet plenty of men in her pub. But they’re all old, Belle counters. And she’s off.
There’s pure panto with Snarlina disguising herself as a tree (Todd’s superb cloak and bright lime plant effect). Despite this arboreal idiocy (“behind you!”), Snarlina inveigles Belle through the thousand-year-old door, Ipswich’s oldest. With a password (more well-contained audience participation throughout). And a lesson for Belle who doesn’t defend Snarlina’s dismissal of Pigeon as “a rat with wings’, as the moral about tolerance and difference is encoded without (thankfully) much preaching. So when they stray into the cursed castle it’s Beauty who swaps herself for Pigeon, under sentence of death for despoiling one of Beast’s beloved roses (roses get projected). Chemistry between Hamilton and Richardson is the most touching in the show.
After the interval Snarlina’s regretting her leniency. And Beast wibbles between splenetic punishment and a hint from bass guitarist and stone-magiced courtier Jacques Le Plop (a limber and sparky Leo Elso, replacing Myles Miller) that Belle might be…well. Urquhart has to transform a thousand years of spleen into love with – songs. And a dress. Luckily his voice, an ardent tenor-baritone, does the job in ‘I Don’t Belong Here’: an original song. Culture differences turn on how to describe takeaways to a thousand-year-sleeping castle? And there’s a (Norman?) recording studio.
Snarlina apparates through the pub trapdoor (fun moment), inveigling Mrs Ringer and Pigeon to muster up a Beast-posse. Cue a wild number ‘Maniac’ (‘She’s a Maniac on the Floor’ with Gallagher). Myles Brown’s choreography is clean and distinguished. After inevitable puns around French-English pronunciation (e.g. “Aero” for “hero”) there’s lightning courtship (cue Belle impervious to looks); and a duet‘True Colours’.
The posse brings Ceri-Ann Townsend and Christian Tyler-Wood along with Gallagher and a vacuum cleaner (unhealthy for sheeted ghosts) with a (s)crap between Pigeon and Le Plop. But there’s more transformation. And Snarlina’s LA-bound with a clutch of Ipswich/Norwich jokes (vary for tour) in an outrageously inappropriate ‘Pink Pony Club’: Larsson’s stratospheric with top notes. You can’t help but be transfixed by her every time she’s cackling on stage. Beauty and the Beast parties out to Wings’ ‘Live and Let Die’ instrumental, ‘I Believe In A Thing Called Love’ and ‘Love Train’..
There’s exquisite effects – autumn leaves falling as Beast does. And duets between Hamilton and Urquhart. A clear storyline allows Belle’s agency (including a tenor sax); a posse of talented triple-threats and vivid effects – especially during the encores with some neat theatre business. Two hours twenty and it’s a mostly tight joyous show, balancing pratfalls with pizzazz. Livestream is ideally clear and audible. Possibly the best pantomime now playing, it proves Stone is currently the queen of writing and scoring pantos.
Associate Set & Costume Designer Christianna Mason, Production Manager Felix Davies, Production Sound Engineer Simon Deacon, Production Electrician John Terry, CSM Tracey-Anne Cutbush, DSM George Rennison, ASM Sophie Latimer.
LX Operator Cian Moore, Head of Stage Pete Ryles, Lighting Programmer Tom Mulliner, Production Carpenter Mike Ryles, Wardrobe Maintenance and dresser Kira Tisbury, Wardrobe Maintenance Assistant Becky Loose, Sound No. 1 Lizzy Stewart, Sound No. 2 Oliver Jones, Technical Manager Oakey Hand, Semior technician Brad Hardman.
Stage Two/Traps Operator James Broadhurst, Lorna Garside
BSL Interpreter Caroline Smith, Audio Describer Michael Achtman, Captioning Operator Moon, Livestream Warehouse Digital, Camera Operator Mitchell Pocock.
