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November 03, 2009

Oliver!

Whitworth AM & DS

Producer – Annette Slater
Music – Ian Crabtree

The Society managed to put on a show at their rebuilt venue and did quite well. It was certainly a learning curve for them and hopefully they will have learnt to circumnavigate the difficulties which they were bound to have and which they expected.

Annette Slater, (mainly a dramatic director in the past) took on board the production of this musical which is not as easy as some people think. It has so many scenes and characters but without picking out any individual, I would merely say that they all did well in varying degrees and all added to the eventual effect of the performance.

A very young lady played Oliver; which is not unknown, and there were plenty of kids and all the traditional touches were there. In fact the singing was overall pretty good. Whilst it may not have been the finest Oliver! I have seen, nevertheless;

I felt that the society should feel proud of what they have achieved. They are a considerable asset to the local community that supported them. They will certainly have learnt how to improve things but everything considered, they did very well.

Ian Crabtree must have worked very hard to condense all the musical backup to modern technology because they are going to have difficulty if they wish to play with an orchestra. Some how it does not quite work as well as live music despite the excellent way in which he had put it all together.

I sometimes feel that performers need to have the backing of live musical accompaniment if at all possible but nevertheless, I can only say – well done, Whitworth!