ThIs production of Richard Morris's musical proved a real triumph for youth.
With an average age of just 15, the cast of actors, singers and dancers delivered a confident and engaging performance that was a tribute to director Regina Arkwright's skills in moulding them together as a unit .
Catherine Wooldridge gave a strong and mature performance as Millie, a Kansas girl on the mean streets of 1920s New York. She was ably backed by the other principals, Jack Mellor as Jimmy Smith, Jenney Heyes as Miss Dorothy Brown, and Phillip Rowbottom as Trevor Graydon.
Charlotte Thompson was suitably scheming as the duplicitous Mrs Meers and both she and Tom Watts and Jamie McLauchlan as her "Chinese" accomplices handled well the humour.
Whilst all the cast, and the musicians under the guiding hand of musical director Geoff Hill, deserve praise, perhaps the "find" of the show was 14-year-old Maimuna Memon.
As the wordly-wise Muzzy van Hossmere, she both displayed her considerable vocal talents and successfully portrayed the most "mature" of the ladies checking in at the Hotel Priscilla.
Phil Lloyd.
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