A well off audience in that case, as the downpours hold off for Monday night's performance of Beauty and The Beast at Williamson Park.

The talented and flexible cast, professional crew and the ready made backdrops of Ashton Memorial and 'the woods', all work together to create a surreal, humorous, and sometimes macabre take on the original fairytale.

Written by Kevin Dyer to incorporate the natural settings of the park, the play draws the audience in from the very start as 'volunteers' help to pull Beauty's sisters up the hill on carts to the back of the memorial for scene two.

Here we meet 'the owner', with his beastly servants, throwing a party for his guests, the audience, who become part of the action again.

The charming and witty owner, we soon come to realise, is not all he seems....

James Daniel Wilson, as Beast, moves fluidly from charming to spiteful to pitiful and self loathing ('groin scratches all the time and smells of wee') to humble, and is the strongest character in a particularly strong cast.

We come to understand why signs around the park warn us to 'Pick Not the Flowers', and the writer incorporates the motif of the rose, and Beauty as the object of desire, skilfully into a narrative that is easily accessible to children as well.

I was particularly impressed with Mark Melville's music composition, which includes live music, beastly beatboxing and tribal vocals and sits well in the forest when coupled with other beastly squawks, hisses and growls.

Michael Strobe plays a rotund and likeable father, Lisa Howard is a hit with the kids as Twyst, and Stephanie Greer, who plays Beauty, is both gutsy and confident in her role.

The table and bed scene, lit by firelight, are both surreal and fun and lead up to a lively and lighthearted ending, where the sisters get a bit of a nasty shock and the audience get to participate one last time...

Nick Lakin

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