Her Campus were lucky enough to attend the preview performance of Exeter Footlight’s sensational, latest production, Singin’ in the Rain, and I can tell you now, it is definitely not one to miss.
Sophisticated scenery and set design, incredibly tight vocals and complex, beautifully executed choreography add contributed to this wonderful production being a complete success. The extremely talented 24-piece band, led by Musical Director James McGregor, opened the play with an encapsulating overture, that set the playful and thoroughly enjoyable tone of the musical.
The initial aspect that stood out – aside from the obvious amazing-ness of the singing and dancing – was the eloquent and professional staging and set-design. The changes of scenery became familiar and made you forget entirely that you were watching a play, and not living it. Use of projection, lighting, music and physical theatre, each scene change and different setting was aesthetically pleasing, relevant to the time and extremely creative. The use of projected media helped further the story, and added another layer of performance.
As I mentioned earlier, the singing and dancing was utterly spectacular. George Maddison, Alice Potter and Andrew Sharpe – the three leading characters – portrayed joy, love and laugh-out-loud-til-your-tummy-hurts humour. The ‘bromance’ style relationship between Madison’s character ‘Don Lockwood’ and his best friend ‘Cosmo Brown’ played by Sharpe, will have you in stitches of laughter, but also in awe of their talents. The entire cast sang beautifully, and the use of 20s-style choreography worked tremendously well.
The use of costume, hair and makeup also demonstrated the time period, and the accuracy and class of the Wardrobe Department added dimension after dimension to the story. Many of the beautifully chosen dresses and outfits complemented the dance numbers perfectly, and this made the production even more entertaining than it already was.
This production by Footlights is incredibly professional, outstandingly enjoyable, and I promise that you will fall in love with every single character by the end of Act One. If you love those feel-good vibes – with a song thrown in here and there – you MUST go and buy your tickets now!
The performance times are Wednesday 24th January (2.30pm and 7.30pm), Thursday 25th January (7.30pm), Friday 26th January (7.30pm), Saturday 27th January (2.30pm and 7.30pm).
Ticket prices: Band A £19.50, Band B £18.00 (Concessions £16.50), Band C £15.50 (Concessions £14.00), Band D £14.00 (Concessions £12.50) and are sure to sell out fast, so grab yours here before they all sell out!