An egg-cellent show! 
Have you ever wondered where you can find a hot air balloon, a magical well and a goose that lays a golden egg? Well this year they, along with a group of raucous and hilarious characters, they were all in Exton
​portraying the magical show ‘Mother Goose’.

This saw Exton taking their sold out audiences on a journey from the quiet ‘Eider Town’ through the spooky ‘Deathly Hallows Wood’ before arriving in ‘The Land of The Immortals’.

The story began for our characters with a wager between the elegant and beautiful Fairy Day (Pat Cusa) and the wickedly evil Demon Night (Rob Hatton). Demon Night, determined to prove that all humans are all vain and greedy, brings the two characters to ‘Eider Town’ and the Annual Goose Fayre. The back and forth between the two characters was portrayed wonderfully by Pat and Rob, and the audience were happy to cheer and boo with enthusiasm.
 
In Eider Town, the beautiful Jill (Hannah Edwards) struggles to convince her uncle, the wicked Squire Blackheart (Dustin Sanders) not to raise the rents of the poor villagers. In amongst them are her boyfriend’s family, led by the lively Mother Goose (Les Richards).
 
Ignoring his niece’s pleas, Squire Blackheart sends around his two bumbling bailiffs, Biff (Brian Wood) and Bash (Sean Murphy). These two bumbling buffoons add some of the great slap stick moments of the production as well as a boxing match later in the proceedings. Sean and Brian, while amazing as individual fools, really bring the characters to life as Biff and Bash and provide some great comedic moments.

The Goose family, consisting of Mother Goose and her sons Jack Goose (Rachel Feeny-Williams), ‘Silly’ Billy Goose (Rachel Pattison) along with their Goose Priscilla (Chris Hoar) are stuck living a pauper’s life until the intervention of Fairy Day starts Priscilla laying Golden Eggs. The brightly coloured Silly Billy as well as the animated Priscilla provide great comedic value to the group.

Seeing pound signs, Squire Blackheart quickly makes a proposal to Mother Goose, much to the dismay of the rest of the family. The comedic ‘romance’ between Squire Blackheart and Mother Goose was portrayed with hilarious perfection by Les and Dustin, two regulars to Exton’s stage. 

​On a more conventional side of romance, the love between Jack and Jill gives a contrast to all the chaos and comedy. Rachel and Hannah not only show the love between the two but they also provided some lovely performances in their singing of ‘Where is Love?’ and ‘As Long as She needs Me’.
 
With her wedding to the Squire looming, Mother Goose takes to Madame Fi-Fi’s beauty parlour where she decides to treat herself to a revolutionary new makeover, much to the dismay of Madame Fi-Fi (Gloria McGinty) and her two assistants Trinny (Sharon Pagliero) and Susannah (Karen Hammond). This trio oose class and sassiness, which can clearly be seen in their rendition of ‘Hey Big Spender’.

Her dreams of a revolutionary makeover are soon dashed and Demon Night takes advantage and whisks Mother Goose away to the magic well and tricks Mother Goose into giving away her Goose and results in kidnapping Jill. From there, our characters fight to get Jill and Priscilla back and get the ‘happily ever after’ that Panto is known for. Our story results in an arrival in ‘Gooseland’ where the regal King (Richard Jacobs & Peter Chubb) and Queen (Gloria McGinty) help our characters get through to their happily ever after.

Supporting our collection of wonderful characters, Mother Goose also showcases a truly brilliant child’s chorus, treating us to some lively dance numbers such as ‘Jail House Rock’ and ‘Monster Mash’. This, coupled with some amazing songs, played beautifully by musical director Trevor Perkins made this a show not to be missed!
 
As the last writer of an Exton review said ‘please don’t leave it two years for another pantomime’. I have to say that I completely agree. Exton really pulled it out of the bag this year and left their audiences laughing, cheering and tapping their toes on the way out, and after all, isn’t that what pantomime is all about?
 
Well Done Exton Drama Club and their amazing director, Hilary Hoar and assistant director, Anne Hacking.

For details of Exton Drama Club please Click / Tap Here