Reviewed by Fran Edwards
August 2012
It is always difficult to review youth groups as the reviewer needs to adjust their expectations to the capacity of the group concerned. Usually with the Hills Youth not a lot of adjustment is required. However this production was not of the usual standard.
The set was well design and the cast used it well, but a comedy which relies on witty dialogue will always suffer when there are dropped lines and missed cues. Also the pace needed to be more rapid fire for some of the gags to work.
Mike Searson (as Seymour Twitt) and Nathan Seyd (as Dudley Sharpe) gave some form to their roles but missed out on the obvious interplay between their characters. Emma Steele and Edie Williams, the McGregor sisters should be commended on their consistent accent. Elle Goodbourn did well as Scarlett and there were good characterisations from other performers. As Frau Beethoven, Ella Heywood-Smith was an interesting character, even if her accents got a little muddled.
There were good points to this production, for the most part the costumes were appropriate and the blocking allowed all the action to be seen, but it was not of the usual HYT standard
