Pantomime
Beauty and the Beast
Ayr Gaiety
Mary Brennan
THREE STARS
Three in a row, and Michael Courtney has established the kind of familiarity that breeds content in his family audiences. They now know to expect that whatever his character is called - this time he's Funny Franc - he'll play the galoot with a genial grin, cleverly daft patter and sprays of real water from ever-larger guns. The squeals of delight from the top-most seats are a happy return for the effort he makes, not just as Franc but as writer/director and producer of the Gaiety panto.
Disney, rather than Grimm, is the reason youngsters are clued up about the who and what happens next in Beauty and Beast. Courtney's task is to capitalise on the appeal of the popular cartoon while keeping faith with the equally popular traditions of pantomime. Does he manage it? Pretty well, even if the essential love story and its scary bits now stretches out to over two-and-a-half hours to allow the Dame (Fraser Boyle) to go round the houses in garish technicolour frockery and some mildly blue punchlines. And for Beauty (Katrina Bryan of CBeebies fame) to be caught between two beastly men. Dastardly landlord Jean Claude van Dumb (Chris Taylor) is ridiculously arrogant: his cod villainy accounts for a lot of whacking-cracking comedy with Courtney as his side-kick. Liam Webster is nastily arrogant as the Prince-cum-Beast who must find love before the rose (projected on side-screens) loses all it petals. Luckily Webster has the kind of singing voice and acting skills that encourage Beauty to see beyond the growling and the grotesque mask. Hurrah! a happy ending and an audience clearly well-entertained
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article