It is a freezing evening and there is a long queue waiting to enter the Parr Hall in Warrington. Children are shouting and jumping up and down with both the cold and excitement. They are here to see the pantomime Beauty And The Beast. This will be a first for many of them. I am sure parents have been reading the fairytale story to them for weeks before tonight and now they are going to see it live!
Set in 18th century France, an enchantress transforms a selfish prince into a monster as punishment for his cruelty. Years later, a young woman, Belle, offers the Beast her own freedom in exchange for her father’s. To break the spell, the Beast must earn Belle’s love before the last petal falls from his enchanted rose, lest he remain a monster forever.
Celebrity actors, humor and some innuendo
What caught my attention about this pantomime was that it stars Jake Quickenden (playing Gaston) – ex footballer, X Factor contestant in two series, I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here in December 2014, Celebrity Masterchef and Dancing On Ice, and also Anne Hegerty (playing The Fairy Rose) off The Chase and also I’M A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here in 2018.
Everyone gets to their seats after a stop first at the toilets – the cold and excitement! Anne Hegerty enters the stage in a red sequin sparkle gown and talks in rhymes. She looks magical.
Belle (played by Charlotte Buxton) in the lead role works really well. She tells us ‘the slime ball Gaston’ is approaching. Jake Quickenden/ Gaston strolls on stage singing ‘I’m Your Man’! He is trying to pull Belle and asks “how about a kiss, just a little pecker”? Belle replies “So I’ve heard”. I snigger – there are a few innuendo lines throughout the show.
The wicked witch tells Gaston “I’ll send you back to X Factor’.
Daniel Dean, who plays Pee Wee Potts, has an important role and keeps the children laughing with his antics and jokes, throwing custard pies and shooting water guns. He tells us:
“I told mum I wanted to be a soldier, so she picked me up and dipped me in her egg”!
Another good one from Pee Wee Potts:
“Have you seen that new film Constipation? No? That’s because it’s not come out yet!”
I chuckle to myself!
There are a few pop songs sung in the show, and we all know them.
The stage set is amazing, and it is a great performance by all – so hurry and get down to see it this week!
Running Saturday 03 January 2025 until Sunday 11 January in Parr Hall, Warrington
For those who need reminding of the story of Beauty And The Beast
An old beggar woman, who really is a disguised enchantress, arrives at a castle where she tries to talk a selfish and cruel prince into accepting an (enchanted) rose as reimbursement for offering her shelter from the weather. He scornfully declines, upon which she reveals her true form, and transforms him into an ugly beast, and his servants become household objects. The only way he can break the curse is by prince learning to love someone, and gain that person’s love, while he looks like a beast, and do so before the last petal of the rose falls; otherwise he will always be a beast.
In a vilage not far away, a few years later, Belle, the bookworm daughter of eccentric inventor Maurice, dreams of adventure. She constantly rejects the advances from a hunter named Gaston, who is an arrogant man. One day, dad Maurice travels to a local fair with his latest invention, but he gets lost in the forest. When he comes accross a castle, he takes refuge in it, but is apprehended for trespassing. Belle goes in search of her father, and finally finds Maurice locked in the dungeon in the Beast’s castle. She offers to take his place as a prisoner and the Beast agrees.
Belle meets the enchanted servants, including candelabra Lumière, mantel clock, Cogsworth, teapot Mrs Potts, and her son Chip, a teacup. But when she finds the enchanted rose, the Beast gets angry and makes her flee into the forest. There she is ambushed by wolves, and the Beast relents and comes to her rescue. The Beast gets injured in the process, and Belle nurses his wounds, while the two of them grow closer.
Maurice, back at home, fails to convince the village inhabitants of the existence of the Beast. Gaston the nasty hunter who was after Belle’s grace plots to get Maurice locked up in an asylum as mentally insane, hoping to blackmail Belle into marrying him in exchange for her father’s release. But before they can lock him up, he goes back to the castle to try and rescue his daughter. The beast, who now loves Belle, releases her. back in the town, Belle shows the villagers the Beast via a mirror. The shocked villagers realise Maurice is not insane.
Out of jealousy Gaston jealously has Belle and Maurice thrown into the cellar, and incites the villagers to kill the Beast. Chip, who snuck out of the castle when Belle left, comes to the rescue and frees the two, using Maurice’s latest invention, a wood-cutting machine.
At the castle, the servants fight and defeat the villagers. Gaston attacks the Beast who is by now severely depressed, but upon seeing Bell the depression lifts and the Beast decides to save Gaston’s life, who then promptly stabs the Beast and inflicts a mortal wound, before he himself falls to his death. Belle, seeing the Beast in what seems to be his last moments alive, tearfully professes her love just as the last petal falls. This reverses the curse of the enchatress, and the Beast becomes Prince once more. His servants revert back to human form as well, and the prince and Belle decided to host a ball for the whole kingdom.
All pictures: credit Parr Hall, with permission to use.
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