The Pirates of Penzance
Posted: Thu Oct 04, 2012 10:10 am
One of the luxuries of being retired is the possibility of attending matinee performances. I took advantage of this yesterday to attend the 2.00 showing of the Pirates of Penzance at the Brookside Theatre Romford, where the part of Major General Stanley was being played by none other than ex-ECF President CJ de Mooi.
At the start I had an Alex Holowczak/Robert Thompson moment as I realised than in the small and select audience (which was marginally outnumbered by the cast) I seemed to be by some margin the youngest person present. When proceedings got under way, a good time appeared to be had by all, although CJ told me afterwards that partly as a result of the size of the audience this had been the flattest show so far.
The show was perfomed without cuts, either to the music (save for a truncated overture, although I still have not worked out why "Climbing over rocky mountain" was presented in a jazzed up arrangement, or why a non-canonical duet for the Pirate King and Samuel was introduced in the first Act) or to the words (which had the downside of making the audience sit through the whole of the interminable "orphan" joke). A young and hard working cast provided an excellent afternoon's entertainment: I particularly enjoyed the perfomances of Stiofan O'Doherty as the Pirate King and Thomas Norman as the Sergeant of Police.
What of the artist formerly known as the Dear Leader? I was not sure what to expect, but I was impressed. It cannot be easy to come on stage towards the end of the Act 1 and launch immediately into the Major General's song, but CJ carried this off with aplomb: word perfect, excellent diction and a pleasing and strong baritone voice. Some of his acting thereafter seemed a little "stagey", but it fitted in well with this production, and he is after all building up to playing the villain Beauty and the Beast at the Shaw Theatre in December.
I had a relatively brief conversation with CJ afterwards. This concentrated on CJ's acting career which he indicated was the only goal that he wants to be pursuing now: we did not discuss the ECF, from which he has clearly moved on in his own mind, just as he has moved on from Eggheads, and I hope he enjoys every success in his future endeavours. I just wish he could have taken the decision to move on before rather than after the Director nomination deadline!
At the start I had an Alex Holowczak/Robert Thompson moment as I realised than in the small and select audience (which was marginally outnumbered by the cast) I seemed to be by some margin the youngest person present. When proceedings got under way, a good time appeared to be had by all, although CJ told me afterwards that partly as a result of the size of the audience this had been the flattest show so far.
The show was perfomed without cuts, either to the music (save for a truncated overture, although I still have not worked out why "Climbing over rocky mountain" was presented in a jazzed up arrangement, or why a non-canonical duet for the Pirate King and Samuel was introduced in the first Act) or to the words (which had the downside of making the audience sit through the whole of the interminable "orphan" joke). A young and hard working cast provided an excellent afternoon's entertainment: I particularly enjoyed the perfomances of Stiofan O'Doherty as the Pirate King and Thomas Norman as the Sergeant of Police.
What of the artist formerly known as the Dear Leader? I was not sure what to expect, but I was impressed. It cannot be easy to come on stage towards the end of the Act 1 and launch immediately into the Major General's song, but CJ carried this off with aplomb: word perfect, excellent diction and a pleasing and strong baritone voice. Some of his acting thereafter seemed a little "stagey", but it fitted in well with this production, and he is after all building up to playing the villain Beauty and the Beast at the Shaw Theatre in December.
I had a relatively brief conversation with CJ afterwards. This concentrated on CJ's acting career which he indicated was the only goal that he wants to be pursuing now: we did not discuss the ECF, from which he has clearly moved on in his own mind, just as he has moved on from Eggheads, and I hope he enjoys every success in his future endeavours. I just wish he could have taken the decision to move on before rather than after the Director nomination deadline!
