This week our blog comes from Kate Russell, who is playing the evil Malevolent in our Sleeping Beauty. Find her wicked words below:

This week has been a time for all the little ghosties and ghoulies to come out to play, so of course this is my favourite time of year! My name is Kate and I am playing the evil fairy Malevolent in our production of Sleeping Beauty in January. I am very lucky to have been in 7 previous pantomimes with SMP, but I have to say this is looking to be the best one yet. I’ve played a few princesses and fairies, but it’s so much fun being bad!

Thanks to the writing talent of Warren McWilliams, and the direction of Christopher O’Shea, as the evil villain of Sleeping Beauty, I get to push people around, slap them round the head and laugh evilly… a lot! So this is great fun for me when we rehearse, although maybe not for Sasha and Luke who play my minions Sniffles and Boggers, as I think they always leave more than a little bit bruised.

Due to my being the baddie, there are several full cast numbers which I am not in. Normally this would feel a bit alien, and I would be a disappointed to not be in a number, but the amazing part is that I get to watch the cast perform them instead. The talent of the cast is truely exceptional, and the arrangements by our Musical Director Mike Benyon, and routines by our Choreographer Fay Kemal, are second to none.

This show will be rather special for me, as I have the great honour of co-writing one of my numbers with our MD Mike. He has written several songs for our shows before, but this will be my first time. I’m very excited, and just hope I can help to create something worthy of the show. We’ll be meeting up soon to make some magic, so you’ll have to see the show to hear how it turns out. J

As it has been Halloween this week, all of our cast members have been connecting with their dark sides, and came dressed in some amazing costumes for our Halloween party. We had some stunning decorations, food, and music, and each time a song from one of our previous shows came on, we were all up dancing the routine, loving every second of it. Although I loved being dressed up, flying around on a broom, the best thing about the party was that it was with all my fiends, I mean friends, from SMP. They say you can choose your friends but not your family, but in this case, we’ve become both, and I wouldn’t change them for the world (no matter what I say when in character).

So here is where I say goodbye. Or, in the words of Malevolent, ‘Oh be quiet you worthless fools! I’m leaving!’ *Insert evil laugh here*.

This weeks blog comes from Michael Lacey, who’s playing our Jester, Presto. So here is it…Hey Presto! 

Hey Gang!!

My names presto and I work her’… Wait. Let’s start that again. My name is Michael and I’ll be playing the part of ‘Presto’ the Court Jester!

So I have received the blogging baton from our lovely Deb Deb, and it’s my turn to report on what filibustering shenanigans have been going on this past week.

This week saw our troupe of amazing individuals setting the dance to ‘Counting Stars’ choreog’d by our fabulous Fay Kimal, which is sang by our devilishly talented ‘Evil Fairy’ Kate Russell backed up by her ‘Tweedle Dee’ and ‘Tweedle Dum’ henchmen ‘Boggers’ (Luke Clow) and ‘Sniffle’ (Sasha Newton)

Meanwhile over yonder in the other room, we were setting the scenes under the ever watchful eye of our Director Chris O’Shea. All was swimmingly well till Mr David Bowmen who is playing Samson (Prince Rupert’s Page) and Myself we asked to stage a little fight scuffle.. Well when I say words cannot describe the hilarity of Bowman’s “Limbering Up” for the scene through the medium of his knees. To cut a long story short he had our Fairies, Prince, Princess, Dame and I in fits of giggles for 10minutes straight. – That was just Monday night…

Wednesday night was an intimate rehearsal where myself and our Dame (Warren McWilliams – who also wrote our fantastic script) were called along with Chris O’Shea.
Chris put us both through our paces with playing around with dialogue and pushing me to face my uncomfortableness of eye contact by making me go through a monologue and counting the exact times I managed to look him in the eye.. Which was a pathetic 5 times!!

Anyway.. I’m so proud to be playing Presto in my first Panto, and the fact that I get to share it with the ridiculously talented individuals of SMP means so much!

You can catch us at the Intimate Theatre, Green Lanes N13 4DH from January 21st – 24th. This is going to be the #Bestpantoever

This weeks blog comes from our tip top dancer, Debbie Petrou, here’s her thoughts…

Hello all and welcome to this weeks instalment of the SMP blog for our fantabulous pantomime Sleeping Beauty.

Once again I put on my dancing shoes and step in line with our fabulous and talented chorus. Together with Jo B, Stacy, Rebecca, Carla, Stuart and our new addition who is as tall as The Shard! Andy, we hope to bring our moves and throw some shapes around the stage and entertain you.

On Monday we became invisible and threw our lovely Prince, Haydn Boxall around the room to bring you a magical number sung by our Evil ( voice of an angel ) Queen Kate Russell. With the help of Boggers and Sniffles the minions help Malevolent put our Prince under a spell, we are all certainly a little bit closer ( if that is possible ) after Monday’s rehearsal, I think the pictures will explain!! Choreographed by our very own Fay Kemal and musically directed my Mikey B we really hope that you enjoy the magic. Alongside our dancers we also teamed up with Director and the amazing cast whilst they ran through their scenes. I must say it’s all shaping up rather well!!

Wednesday’s rehearsal funcked us all up with a cracking number musically directed by the one and only Mr Benyon!! I thought we couldn’t get better, I was wrong!! Fronted by our super duper script writer Mr Warren McWilliams (Dame) we hope that our punchy, bright and tap your foot beats will get you all up dancing in the isles!!

Well that brings me to the end of my blog. Tickets are on sale and can be purchased online or over the phone. #BESTPANTOEVER

This week’s blog comes from the very sparkly Joanna McWilliams:

Coo-ee Cherubs,

A very sparkly welcome to Instalment #5 of our super exciting Sleeping Beauty Blog. I have so enjoyed reading these each week, especially as my fellow SMP buddies have done such a peachy job at keeping us all informed. Whilst a little nervous, I’m totally chuffed to get a chance to have go myself…almost as chuffed as I am to be playing the jumpy, joyous Fairy Fauna in our production of Sleeping Beauty, at the Intimate Theatre, this coming January, superbly written by Warren McWilliams, I might add. (Who says I’m biased?)

So here goes, folks…

Monday evenings rehearsal was dedicated to dance recaps, whoop whoop (we all get rather excited when there’s a chance to jump around) There were two big company numbers to recap, both carefully constructed by Choreographer Extraordinaire, Mrs Fay Kemal (omg, she totes just got married to fellow smper, Yiltan) and with Fays experienced hand not only are we flying through the numbers, we are already making time to recap them too. Much sweaty fun was had that evening and what a great start to the week it was.

On Wednesday evening we were back with the lovely Mr Mike Benyon (of MD joy), this time to learn one of our baddie numbers, booooo…I mean oooohh. With lead vocals from the delectable Kate Russell, who plays our wicked fairy, Malevolant, and backing from Sniffles & Boggers (Sasha & Luke of previous blog fame), the meany minions and our brilliant chorus, it was sounding deliciously dark. Kates incredible voice alone is reason enough to buy a ticket! We sped through that number so quickly that we had time to squeeze in a little more learning, and “hot damn” does our pre finale sound amazeballs…we’ve not even finished it yet. Well done Mikey B!

Meanwhile, during all that musical fun, upstairs some of our cast were left in the very capable hands of our awesome costume department, headed up by Ellie Goss & Fay, who I quote “always come in under budget” whilst still making us look fabulous. When you add in friend of SMP, Debbie Sandys, and her remarkable seamstress skills, you have a seriously powerhouse team up there. This week, all three good fairies, myself and dear friends, Lynzey Cooper & Marian Lynch who play Fairy Flora and Fairy Merriweather respectively, were measured for not one…but TWO dresses each, eeeeeeeeek. As if rehearsals weren’t fun enough, they go and throw custom made sparkly dresses and wings into the mix…no wonder I love SMP so much. Even the A10 resurfacing works on my journey home can’t dampen the glorious mood I find myself in after an evening with the extended fam.

Well I think that covers it, cherubs, what a productive week that was! Thank you so much for reading you lovely bunch. I shall now hand the baton over to another excited SMPer, ready to inform you of even more wondrous goings on at SMP HQ…but not before I share some piccies of last week’s Joy…

“Everything is far less tragic, with a dust of Fairy Magic” Fairy Fauna, 2015

The next blog post comes from our very own Boggers, Luke Clow!

Hello and welcome to the new instalment of the SMP Blog! This time I take up the (virtual) pen to bring you the updates on another exciting week of fun! I’m playing the character of Boggers which is an absolute laugh riot of a part! Together with my partner in crime and, indeed, grime in this show (Sniffles – played by Sasha, who wrote last weeks’ instalment) we’re going to have a brilliant time and do our best to steal the whole show. As Sasha mentioned in last week’s blog, we spent last week setting some of our scenes and learning a song that we get to bring to you all. Well this week we got to set the dance to that song. I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but it’s absolutely AWESOME!!!! As soon as we heard that we’d get to do this song in the panto we were buzzing to get in and set the dance.

Well – that was this Monday! So – our lovely choreographer Fay Kemal brought us in and once I’d explained that I currently am recovering from a bad dose of Whooping Cough and thus a less vigorous dance routine might be a good idea – she caringly set a routine that left me a sweaty broken mess upon the floor. It was BRILLIANT! It wasn’t just me left broken by the routine, even those far fitter, more flexible and crucially younger were also knackered by the end! It should make for a fantastic routine in the show – but if I do end up with Pneumonia from the exertion I’m blaming you Fay!!

Wednesday saw us come together with our MD, the talented Mr Mike Benyon, to set some more solo/duet/trios. There was some fantastic sounds coming out of the rehearsal room and indeed myself, Sniffle and Malevolent learned a brilliant song that I’m really excited to sing. It’s dark and moody and then unleashes in a kind of rock style towards the end. It’s already sounding fantastic and there’s going to be a layer of chorus harmonies added to it as well so that should be a number to really look forwards to.

We also heard some lovely stuff from our Prince and our Princess Aurora on the night as well. Their song together is sure to be a smash hit with all the kids in our audience (including those young at heart) and had us humming and singing along as we listened in through the door.

There was also lots going on in terms of costumes beginning to be put together and finalised for some people – that’s always a very exciting time as it suddenly becomes way more real as a show and we start to identify with our characters more. The next few weeks should be really fun with pulling all the different strands together more and we can’t wait for people to come along and see the show, it’s looking to be the #BestPantoEver!

This week our blog comes from Angela Thompson our very own Queen! Enjoy!

What does your Internet history say about you??

I walk into the hall beaming. Today’s rehearsal is for all principal cast. I’ve been flirting with the world of showbiz nearly all my life and though I can claim some childhood television success, this is the first time I’ve ever been cast as a principal in a stage production. (I may, or may not, have celebrated this fact with a magnum of champagne..)

I’ll be playing Queen Rubina, Sleeping Beauty’s mother, and I’m delighted to have landed this part. Last weekend I had my 6 year old daughter reading lines with me so I could be “off script” for my audition piece. I also had my 4 year old son watching YouTube clips with me so that I could learn the audition song, which it turns out, will be the opening number of the show. As you can see, landing this role is a family victory 🙂 Back to tonight and we’re all given a copy of the script, ready to begin a full read through. As I look around at the rest of the principals, I feel some nerves start to mix in with my excitement. I may be the oldest in the room, but I am dwarfed by experience. There is some serious acting talent in here!

As the rehearsal gets under way, we all get into character and the nerves melt away. This is the first time we have read through the whole show together and we all find ourselves laughing hysteri-cally at the classic panto jokes and people’s interpretations of their characters. This is going to be one fun show to watch, that’s for certain. There are several cast members missing tonight so we all jump in to read their lines throughout the evening. A particular highlight was Warren, who is playing Nurse Nelly, spending one scene reading in for Princess Aurora..

Elsewhere this week, I’ve been discussing Queen Rubina’s style with our wonderful head of cos-tumes, and choreographer, Fay. Drawing on some of my favourite Queen characters, I’ve had some fun researching a variety of wigs and jewellery for the show. Needless to say, my Amazon “inspired by your browsing history” product suggestions are now more than a little bizarre..

Our first blog comes from our director Chris O’Shea, here’s his thoughts on our first week:

So I am kicking off the SMP’s Sleeping Beauty blog. Rehearsals are now underway with a successful bunch of auditions. I couldn’t quite believe the talent I witnessed and could not be more excited to direct a show with such a fabulous group of performers. Not only have I got a brilliant cast, I also have to mention the amazing production team: Fay our choreographer and Mike our musical director.

This will be my directing debut with SMP, which is nerve-racking and exciting, but I am determined, with this production team and cast to make this the #BestPantoEver.

We have made a start with our opening number, and let’s just say, its sounding and looking amazing. We have our first acting rehearsal on Wednesday which I am thoroughly looking forward to. I can’t wait to watch these characters really come alive.

On Saturday and Sunday we attended the Enfield Town Show, while some of the cast members performed a variety of songs and flyered the public. Ticket sales are on the move, and even though it may sound early to book tickets, it really isn’t. If you want good seats, get booking. While rehearsals have only just begun, I can tell you, this show is not to be missed.