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Last Night (8/10/24), I had the pleasure of being invited to the regional press night of the UK touring production of ‘101 Dalmatians: The Musical’ at Woking’s New Victoria Theatre.
This musical, based on the well-loved movies, was composed by Douglas Hodge, written by Johnny McKnight and was directed by Bill Buckhurst.
Kym Marsh leads a company of extremely talented performers playing the villainous role of ‘Cruella De Vil’ - well-known fashionista and “animal lover”. If there was ever a role for Kym Marsh, this was it. Marsh attacks the characters' vocal moments with a lovely voice and brings impeccable character to the role - bringing this villain we love to hate, to life onstage in front of our eyes! When she is onstage, Marsh is the focus of all, and commands the audience with her large stage presence.
The first thing that stood out to me, and remained my favourite thing throughout the performance was the use of puppetry! The puppets for this production were designed and directed by Jimmy Grimes. Within a show like this with a great deal of animals, puppetry is a great route to use and in the instance of ‘101 Dalmatians’ it is pulled off perfectly! From the dalmatians, to tabby cats these furry friends are truly fascinating to watch - Each and every performer had very clearly studied the movements of their animal and after a while you completely lose vision of the puppeteer, your logic is suspended and you can believe for 2 hours that you are watching a litter of puppies dance around the stage.
Jessie Elland takes to the stage as ‘Danielle’, human owner of ‘Pongo’ the dalmatian. I thought Jessie brought a great energy to the stage, bringing a bubbly character that the audience could immediately get behind - not to mention her beautiful singing voice and wonderful onstage chemistry with her partner ‘Tom’ played by Samuel Thomas. Thomas is hilarious in this role and had the audience giggling within seconds!
Our leading dalmatians were brought to life by Emma Thornett and Linford Johnson playing Perdi and Pongo respectively. Both have stunning vocal talent as well as marvellous puppetry skills which blew my mind completely watching them create these dogs in front of my eyes!
The comedy duo of Danny Hendrix as Jasper and Charles Brunton as Casper had the audience in stitches of laughter with their incredible comedic timing, physical comedy and just all round silly-ness!
This is a really nice musical, fun for the entire family - children and adults alike (those young at heart included). Some of the songs are really memorable, the end of act one in particular was a powerful number ‘Bring me fur’ sung by Kym Marsh.
Theres also a super adorable surprise at the end of the show too.. So keep your eyes peeled!
I’d recommend this show to literally anyone! It plays at the New Victoria Theatre, Woking until Saturday, tickets available at: https://www.atgtickets.com/shows/101-dalmatians/new-victoria-theatre/
- and the tour continues on with information available at https://101dalmatians.co.uk/
Robbie Davies | Robbie’s Backstage Bants
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