GALLERY: Gala evening celebrates 150 years of local theatre

HOW do you go about celebrating the sesquicentennial anniversary of the Jersey Opera House?

You organise a gala evening packed with all the different kinds of entertainment which have graced the stage over 150 years, and you use your best am-dram performers in a celebration of local theatre.

Between them, director Nick Carver (who got a huge cheer when he appeared as Fagin), creative co-ordinator Dominika Szpinda and musical director Luke Brown put on an ambitious evening, which cleverly took us through the history of the theatre from 1865 to the present day.

The whole concept of Saturday’s one-off performance was based on a man in 2065 who was looking back at the history, as characters like Lillie Langtry, Charlie Chaplin and original owner Wybert Rousby were introduced to us.

Unusually, the characters of the principal ensemble were on the stage before the show started, and again in the interval, in a sort of slow-motion mime which was effective and really quite hypnotic.

Packed into the ensuing two hours were drama, ballet, song and dance, aerial acrobatics, Shakespeare, opera, poetry, musical theatre and panto.

The first half ended on the perfect high note, with the celebration of Liberation Day and the girls from The Optimistic Voices raising the tempo. Red, white and blue confetti showered down on the stalls.

The addition of Opera House volunteers serving ice creams like usherettes within the auditorium was a nice touch.

Inevitably the second half was a lot more upbeat, for it covered modern entertainment.

There were three particular highlights.

The Waltz of the Flowers by the Carousel School of Dancing was beautifully done.

There was also the return to his home stage of EastEnders actor Jonny Labey, who appeared as Seymour from The Little Shop of Horrors.

There was no time for the audience to acknowledge his success with an extra round of applause, which I felt many wanted to do.

But for me, the most uplifting and joyful celebration came from the Jersey Green Room Club bringing together two of their most successful runs, Sister Act and Hairspray.

What was perhaps notable about the whole evening was what had been left out.

It was a pleasant surprise that there were no speeches and no lengthy lists of sponsors to be thanked.

It was, however, a bit of a mystery as to why there was not even a name check woven into the history for former owner Dick Ray.

The evening drew seamlessly to a close with a short sketch about the Eisteddfod, in which a young girl recited a poem in Jèrriais.

It was followed by some songs from the Badlabecques and Beautiful Jersey sung by Sadie Le Sueur-Rennard.

The whole cast were on stage for the finale, an upbeat and unique version of Beautiful Jersey, no doubt inspired by the song from Sister Act: ‘Raise your voice for Beautiful Jersey’.

It was a rousing and fitting end to a memorable night, for which the cast got a standing ovation.

Principal ensemble:

Boy, Mac Galvin;

Girl, Mimi Galvin;

Kae, Keiran Brown;

Reg Stock, Adrian Smith;

Doris, Liisa de Carvalho;

Wybert Rousby, Allan Gardner;

Charlie Chaplin, Joss MacDonald;

John Le Cras, Daniel Austin;

Lillie Langtry, Karen Syvret;

Lucy Lindsey, Caroline Davies;