Here at SMP we’re very lucky to have a plethora of talent to call upon when we put our shows on and if you’ve been to our pantos over the last few years you’ll have noticed that along with plenty of popular songs in our shows we also feature some original music courtesy of our gifted Musical Director, Mike Benyon.

Hot on the heels of ‘Cinderella’s Song’ from Cinderella,  ‘Girl in Heaven’ from Aladdin, ‘As Magic Comes My Way’ from Sleeping Beauty and ‘Ice’ from Frosted. Benyon’s penned another belter with ‘A Fairytale Ending’ for The Little Mermaid.

And you can hear the song here: https://soundcloud.com/user-913787798/a-fairytale-ending-master 

Music and Lyrics by Mike Benyon

Featuring Lucy Sardinha as The Little Mermaid with Wendy Cooper, Carla Segel, Julie Dowling, Joanna McWilliams, Debbie Wall, Jo Bakhurst & Kate Sanders

Guitar – Tim Hall

In our show, A Fairytale Ending is sung by Mariel, the Little Mermaid as she dreams of what life might be like if she could live with her Prince up on dry land. Those of you who listen closely might notice some references to other Fairytale Princesses, could they make an appearance during the number? The only way to find out is by joining us for the show.

You’ll here this some and a host of brilliant popular songs in our show this year, you can book your tickets here:

Hello landlubbers and denizens of the deeps. It’s Lewis here reporting for the Daily Star(fish).

Following a snowy weekend off, this week was kicked off at Cannon house with singing recaps under the tutelage of Mike B.

Wednesday saw us all running some of the show ahead of the week’s main event – the first costume run!

Yes the first time we all get to see the colourful menagerie that creative team have put together all at once and it was incredible, with bright mermaids rubbing shoulders with dreadful poor unfortunate souls.

You’ll see a few sneak peeks below but for the reel thing, you’ll just have to come sea us!

Finally, we here at SMP are really getting into the christmassy swing of things and to prove it here’s a picture of our Christmas Petree (complete with cherub on top).

I know that you’re just urchin for show week to arrive (I know I am) so book your plaice in our audience schooner rather than later!!

You can book your tickets here now.

Hello Merfolk my name is Debbie and I am playing the part of Briny one of the mermaid sisters!

This week we were swept along on the currents of the stormy ocean with rehearsal venues being changed but in true SMP spirit we pull together and make the best of a challenge.

On Monday we set the end of act 1 and what a thrill that’s going to be. A mash up of two wonderful songs and the choreography of our master Jo B!

On Wednesday we ran the show and our master Mike B worked with our funny duo Deborah Marsh who is playing Dr Love and Francois Vanhoutte to create a fantastic song that is going to steal the show! We also had our lovely costume mistresses Fay and Ellie organising us.

Finally we got to run the show on Sunday which surprised us all with how well it went!

We really do have a fantastic show on our hands and that’s with all thanks to our production team who have all worked so hard to get us to this point.

You really won’t want to miss our Under-the-Sea extravaganza; book those tickets now. You won’t be disappointed.

Hi, I’m Mike Benyon, musical director for this and the vast majority of SMP’s pantos in the last 25 years!

It’s normally fairly easy to tell early on whether you have a good show on your hands and A Little Mermaid certainly comes into that category.

To start with we are blessed with an SMP cast that continues to go from strength to strength. This includes incredibly talented newcomers Niki KC, Julie Dowling and Barnaby Davis and the return of the wonderful Debbie Marsh who was in my first SMP panto, Alice in Wonderland, back in 1993.

We once again have an hilarious script written by Warren McWilliams who is achieving great success having now published many of his others with Lazy Bee Scripts. One of the most positive aspects for me this year is our choice of exciting songs which include a variety of classic pop and musical songs and modern pop.

Without wishing to sound like an old fusty, one issue that I have every year is to arrange 21st century chart songs that have no chords or tune into something that will sound good with a live band and chorus. Fortunately in amongst all of the tut we have unearthed some classics that sound fantastic with our talented cast.

This year again I have had the pleasure of writing an original song “A Fairy tale Ending” which will be sung by our Princess and her mermaid sisters. On last Wednesday’s rehearsal I was so pleased and impressed with how the girls sang it that I have decided to go into a studio to record it a couple of weeks before Xmas. This is obviously a very exciting project and we will post the final mix in a few weeks’ time.

I am very fortunate to be working alongside a couple of great people. Michael Lacey is making his debut as a director and clearly has a flair for it. Jo Bakhurst has an amazing talent for producing exciting and vibrant dance routines that are so perfect for the songs we are doing.

Next Sunday is our first Sunday rehearsal and it will be exciting to see everything start to come together. As musical director I don’t get the opportunity to see any of the characterisation until the first run throughs so this is always an exciting time.

The thing that always occurs to me is that SMP always put as much effort into producing a panto as they do for their summer musicals. This production is certainly no exception with numerous full on chorus numbers with complex dance routines and harmonies. With many of these songs led by Lucy Sardinha, Jack McGinn and Kate Sanders who all have beautiful voices this is sure to be a show to remember.

You really won’t want to miss our Under-the-Sea extravaganza; book those tickets now. You won’t be disappointed.

Greetings humans! This week’s blog comes from your very own sea princess- Coral. I’m Mariel’s (ditzy) sister and proud daughter of King Triton- Lord of the Seas.

This week’s rehearsal saw the return of our glorious costumiers Ellie and Fay, who came armed with sequins and ball-gowns, ready to robe us under-the-sea royalty. There was great excitement as us mermaids prepared to decorate our shell-bras. With glitz and sea-shells a plenty and under careful supervision, us ‘mers’ went home with bags of pearls and trinkets. If I don’t make it to the shows in January- presume I’ve glued myself to something whilst operating a glue-gun.

As show week creeps ever closer, our headquarters were a hive of activity on Wednesday. We almost lifted the roof off with our rendition of Poor Unfortunate Souls. Kate makes a formidable Octavia- I certainly wouldn’t want to be in Mariel’s shoes! Mike put our vocals to the test with some thrilling harmonies and our Mash-Up with the crowd pleasing ‘I’ll put a Spell on You’ is sure to impress.

As per usual, Debbie kept us going with her resident tuck-shop. I don’t know what I’d do without that ‘tea’ break sugar rush.

You really won’t want to miss our Under-the-Sea extravaganza; book those tickets now. You won’t be disappointed.

Welcome mere mortals. This is Triton! I am Mariel’s father and king of the Merfolk.

We had the pleasure this week to be rehearsing one of Jo B’s awesome choreographed numbers. This dance is a interesting mix between fluid movements to more upbeat choreography. Jo, as always, tested our dance ability and all the cast help each other practise and perfect the dance. In my opinion this my favourite dance of the show; however, there are still more dances to learn!

As it was the eve of Halloween, it was more than enough of an excuse to have an impromptu mini party, spooky music, freestyle dancing and a light show! That’s how SMP roll!

On Wednesday, we were learning another new song for this jam-packed panto. And what a number has been chosen. Like previous bloggers I’m not going to give any spoilers to what the song is but it’s a goodie!

Anyway, I must get back to ruling the sea now. Book your tickets now. Don’t miss out!

You can book your tickets by clicking below.

Hi Marian here, October has been a bit of a busy month for me, so I missed a couple of rehearsals in the last few weeks, which is never ideal as panto rehearsals are particularly busy and fast paced. I was therefore very pleased to see that we were doing dance recaps this week on everything we’ve been taught so far!

Panto always has more songs and dances than any regular musicals, so if you don’t keep going over them it can be quite a daunting task to get everything up to standard in the last couple of months before show week. It’s always fun to run through the dances too, as it shows you how much you’ve already covered and it’s a free fitness class! Jo has choreographed some really fun, upbeat numbers to get our audiences toe tapping already and there’s more to come!

I’d be lying if I didn’t say that as one of the longstanding members of the group, the energetic dances are getting to be more challenging each year and Jo certainly take no prisoners with her choreography! It takes a while to build your stamina back up after the Summer break and dance recaps are always both mentally and physically tiring, but they give you a good indication of how much homework you need to do and mostly it’s a good surprise to realise how much you can remember! We all left the Monday rehearsal tired and aching, but very excited about performing these dance to our audiences.

We were joined by our fab tech team  on Monday as SM Alex Snow, Lighting designer Matt Herd, Set genius extraordinaire Matt McManus and general nuisance Warren McWilliams started to work through all the technical aspects of the show to make sure everything we want to happen will and we’ll ensure everything looks great, runs smoothly and there’s magic throughout the show.

On Wednesday it was time to learn two new songs and as usual we were all blown away by the collective sound that such a talented cast can produce – even if we do say so ourselves! Mike is very clever with his musical arrangements and his patience with us when we all get a bit overexcited and rowdy is commendable! I don’t want to give too much away, but one of the songs we learnt made a few members of the group emotional (in a good way!) – I won’t name names though to spare their blushes and protect their image!

It’s lovely to have new and old faces again in the cast for this show and the newly crowned Mrs Wall has been helping with the team bonding by running the SMP tuck shop and setting fun quizzes to do in the break – this week’s quiz was based on Musical titles, so no surprise that everyone got top marks!

The Mermaids also had their first costume fitting on Wednesday which was top secret, we all can’t wait to see what our magical costume team of Fay, Ellie and the very talented Debbie Sandys have come up with! Needless to say we won;t look like this.

The show is definitely starting to take shape and if it’s half as much fun to watch as it is to rehearse then you need to get booking your tickets now, so you don’t miss out on all the fun!

You can book your tickets by clicking below.

Greetings!

I am Crusty, the super intelligent villainous side kick of Octavia! I am using big words like villainous in an effort to make myself sound more photosynthesis – you know like clever and that!

We have had a marvellous time in rehearsal this week learning lots of songs and dances to dazzle you with!

Monday saw the Pirates take the stage and learn their Aaarghsome routine. The mermaids also did a fishy dance or two and they were superb! Myself and my fellow evil sidekick Corky got to work through some of our scenes and sing our hearts out! We hope our Bossneship Octavia will be proud of us!

This is a marvellous rib tickling production from Warren McWilliams and we are loving the creative decisions from our Director Michael Lacey, Choreographer Jo Bakhurst and Musical Director Mike Benyon!

What’s that Corky? No I’m not placing a pizza order… no, I can’t I’m writing a blog… what? Octavia? Ahhh! Crusty over and out! See you at the show!

Click below to book tickets.

Hi everyone out there, my name is Tina and I have been lucky enough to be chosen to not only tread the board’s once again with this bunch but the chance to rule the on land kingdom as the Queen with my King Andy as well as swim the sparkly depths of the sea with my crabtastic friends!!

After taking a break during the summer I couldn’t wait to get my feet tapping again so its an absolute pleasure to be back in the arms of this wonderful team.

Monday saw us members of the chorus having a night off while the principal actors blocked scenes with Mr Fishbossman Micheal. I can not wait to see what they have done, i just know its going to be amazing as will be the show! Its Michaels directorial debut and for a first timer he knows exactly what hes doing- hes got a vision and he is bringing it to life!

Wednesday evening a group of us joined Mr Mikey ‘Keys of steel’ Benyon round the piano to learn a belter of a number which is going too look and sound stunning once our fintastic choreographer Jo B gets us shaking our tails!!

We sung through and recapped what had already been learnt which really helped on a personal level after missing a couple of weeks due to illness.

While all that was going on the mermaids were with our fabulous costume ladies Ellie and Miss Fay organising their fins….. I just cant wait for you all to hear and see the phenomenon that is SMPs The Little Mermaid. Tickets are now on sale don’t miss out book today!!!

Click below to book tickets.

Hello!

Luke here, aka Corky a splendidly dense minion shark!

Another fun week of rehearsals here in SMP’s production of The Little Mermaid. Monday saw us recapping the dance numbers already learned and then setting the dance to our finale song. Without giving it away, it’s an absolute banger of a track and the routine matches it! Jo B (our wonderful choreographer) again smashed it and put us through our paces with another inspired routine.

Wednesday saw us getting our sing on. Legendary musical director Mike Benyon banged out 3 numbers in one night! We set a fantastic ‘baddie’ song, a beautiful heartbreaking solo for our Mermaid in Chief (the fabulous Lucy Sardinha), and then an absolute stormer of a song for the Prince (Jack McGinn). The Prince’s number was a particular highlight for me, it’s one of my favourite songs – a proper rock ballad and we got to be the backing choir enjoying some amazing harmonies and a little bit of air grabbing. I won’t spoil what the song is, but trust me – it’s an absolute scorcher and I can’t wait to see and hear it when it all comes together!

Also on Wednesday, the fabulous Debbie Wall gave us her ultimate Disney quiz. While I love a good quiz, I think some of our group were a little more suited and were crushed to learn they got one answer wrong!

Much fun had by all here at SMP HQ this week and this show is already shaping up rather nicely to be a cracker. Tickets are on sale now, so jump on the website and book yours now! Trust me, it’s going to be Fin-tastic!!!

Tickets are on sale now, click below to book.

Good to SEA ya, fellow mer-beings Thank you so much for checking out our fin–tastic blog.

My name is Jo (or sometimes peach, or cherub, or just whatever you fancy) and I have the absolute pleasure of playing the role of “Aqua”, one of Mariels six sassy sisters. She’s a bit of stickler for rules, is our Aqua, studious too, and maybe a touch bossy, but she totally means well. She is much fun to play, and it was great to get a first go in our Monday rehearsal, whoop.

As usual for Monday’s we were rehearsing at The Intimate, and while our super choreographer, JoBOne, was teaching another sublime routine, this time for our baddies and the unfortunate souls to the sound of a cracking “Adele “ number, the rest of us were dusting off our scripts with our fab director Michael (it’s his directorial debut, you know, and he’s smashing it already) We managed to block all of Act One and us sisters got a few goes at our scenes with Mariel too…there were LOTS of giggles and banter with all seven of us together

On Wednesday we were back in the very capable hands of Mr Mike “keys of steel” Benyon, where we enjoyed belting out one of our upbeat finale songs (no spoilers) and revised our carnival inspired opening number too.

Copious amounts of tea and treats from our “Little Mermaid Tuck Shop” kept us all going through a tremendously productive and fun week under the sea.

Hope you cab join us for a crabtastic time in January. You’ll not want to miss this opporTUNAty…or all the bad fish jokes

Until then, Merfolk, big love and mer-kisses to you Xxxxx

Tickets are on sale now, click below to book.

And so that’s it.. the show has officially been cast! After a fantastically high standard of auditions on the 10th and 11th of September, SMP’s “The Little Mermaid – Panto 2018” is well under way!!

Monday night was the night everyone had been waiting for.. “The Phone Calls” – after the last audition has been completed, many of the “potential” cast gather at the local pub to await their fate.. I mean Phone call! This has become somewhat of a tradition within SMP, everyone supporting each other and being so excited to find out who got what part.

First rehearsal on Wednesday went off with a bang! Full of fun and crazy antics! The cast were introduced to each other through a set of “Ice Breaker” games, where we had a “Mermaid-Off” catwalk!! The cast were given a few bin bags and a roll of tape, then challenged to dress a nominated person up as a mermaid.

Then we had our first cast read-through of the fantastic script which has been written by Warren McWilliams. I have to say, this is quite possibly the best script I have had the pleasure of being apart of since being with SMP, and what a script it is for my first “Directorial Debut” it’s full of witty one liners and great comical shenanigans!!

I can’t wait to really get into full on rehearsal mode, with the cast we have being so packed full of talent, you sure are all in for a FINtastic show!! Be sure to book your tickets now to avoid disappointment!!

Tickets for the show are now available to book online click the image below or you can call 07708 708 062  or email SMPTickets@hotmail.com