Entertainment
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The World’s Biggest Panto may just be the greatest ever
It has been billed as the World’s biggest panto, the only one that could boast of a cast of 100, an award winning gospel choir and a Bollywood dance troop. Cinderella opened in Birmingham at the Barclaycard Arena on Sunday night and it is totally wowing audiences with his mixture of panto, circus, dance and song. It is more than a mere pantomime, it may well be the ultimate Christmas spectacle. I was spellbound. We all know the story of Cinderella so I don’t think I’m spoiling the surprise for anyone when I say all the elements of the original story are in place, albeit with a slight twist in…
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The Chuckle Brothers are panto gold at Wolverhampton Grand
Peter Pan, Tinkerbell and the gang flew into Wolverhampton tonight for the launch of panto season. Yes the shouts of ‘he’s behind you’ ,’oh no it isn’t’ and the new addition ‘to me, to you’ were once again reverberating around the beautiful Grand Theatre as the anarchic nuttiness of The Chuckle Brothers and the cartoon ham villainy of John Altman( aka Nasty Nick Cotton) made Peter Pan another panto smash hit. For good family fun and entertainment this is hard to beat, and this is mainly due to panto gold Paul and Barry Chuckle. As is so often the case in panto land, the lead characters are not the stars,…
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Dressed for work with the Birmingham Royal Ballet
A wonderful new photographic exhibition opened in Birmingham last week. ‘Dressed for Work’ is a fantastic celebration of the work of Marta Kochanek and is part of the 25th Birthday celebrations of the Birmingham Royal Ballet. The photographs feature four of the key dancers from the BRB, First Soloist Celine Gitttens, Principal Momoko Hirata, Soloist Rory Mackay and Principal Cesar Morales and shows their transformation from their normal wardrobes, to being ‘Dressed for Work’. I love the idea behind the exhibition, which states “Most of us naturally think of our wardrobes as including both work and play clothes, or casual or dress clothes. But what happens when fancy dress is…
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White Christmas sprinkles Christmas Magic
A little bit like the advent calender’s that popped up everywhere yesterday, the 1st of December also saw the Wolverhampton Grand theatre opening the doors to the latest seasonal classic, the musical stage version of ‘White Christmas’ . The frothy, sparking musical, based upon the classic Bing Crosby/Danny Kaye Paramount Pictures film, was staged with style and panache by the South Staffs Musical Theatre Company. It was an utterly charming, crowd pleasing piece that left the audience leaving the theatre with a warm glow truly believing Christmas had arrived. We start in 1944, where Privates Bob Wallace and Phil Davis are entertaining the troops on Christmas Eve. Flash forward 10…
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Megableu games – Review and Competition
Following on from the Megableu games review that arrived just in time for Halloween, we recently received three further games from Megableu to play with and enjoy. The games were Cobra Attack, Trickin Camel and Alien Mission, and either one of these would be a very welcome addition to any child’s Christmas stocking. They show that games have come a long way from Ludo and Snakes and Ladders. Joe totally fell in love with Cobra Attack, not least because it is a game that centres around a snake, which is my number one phobia and hence is very funny in the eyes of a 6 year old. The Cobra Attack…
