Rob Maplestone was just 15 when he first directed Jack and the Beanstalk for Capel St Mary’s Orchard Players. Fourteen years later, he’s doing it all over again.
“It’s my home... I started here when I was eight years old,” says Maplestone, who directed the company’s NODA award-winning pantos The Wizard of Oz and Cinderella.
Rehearsals for the show are going well. They’d run it through seven times already when I popped into see how things were going.
“It’s an exciting show, with lots of great music like I’m a Believer, Marry You, Let it Go from Frozen... We’ve got a great beanstalk (thanks to help from) Kyle Watts who’s a professional tech guy at the New Wolsey Theatre; we having this amazing hot air balloon and a very special giant,” says the professional director and singer, who this time last year was playing the Tinman in the Landseer Players’ production of The Wizard of Oz.
“I think if you keep things traditional and simple it works. It’s a traditional show and a non-stop circus in my eyes - bright, bold. That was my vision, make it like the circus, like a bit of a cartoon really. That is what people want to come and see for a night out in January. Jack is a great show and one people know.”
More and more theatre companies are putting off their panto runs to January and February this year it seems?
“I see January is the time when people get their Christmas bills or have this real low, so January’s always been panto season for us - it’s quite a nice time to have something amazing to look forward to in January.”
Ticket prices have been kept low too.
“We’ve kept our ticket prices the same for about six or seven years now,” says Orchard Players committee member Hazel Hole. “We could do with putting them up but we haven’t, because we don’t want to put off anybody.”
Can Jack, Dame Trot and lovable cow Daisy make it up, and more importantly back down, the beanstalk having defeated the fearsome Giant and his henchman Fleshcreep and rescuing the lovelorn Jill?
Find out at Capel St Mary Village Hall on January 8-10, 7.30pm nightly with a matinee at 2.30pm on the Saturday. Tickets are £8 adults, £6 concessions and £5 children and available by calling 07754 175399.
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