One of the most well-loved Disney musicals is back in London, and it’s just as fantastic as ever.
‘Beauty and the Beast,’ now playing at The Palladium Theatre in Central London, invites you to be their guest in this beautiful re-telling of a tale that is as old as time. Step into this fairy tale where music, romance and fantasy blend to enchant you in a story that we all know.
Belle (Courtney Stapleton), who lives in a small house with her father Maurice (Martin Ball), is a beautiful young woman who is being wooed by Gaston (Tom Senior), handsome and wanted by all girls of the village, but also not very nice and very egotistical. When Maurice goes missing Belle searches for him and finds him in a huge castle in the dark deep words where he is being held hostage by a prince who was transformed into a Beast (Shaw Taylor). The servants in the castle are household objects, and there is a rose that is slowly losing its petals and once all the petals fall off the Beast and the household objects will remain as they are – with no hope to be turned back into normal human bodies. The only way to stop the petals from falling off is if the Beast falls in love, and he does so with Belle. And while Belle tells the Beast she will take her fathers place as a hostage, slowly slowly slowly the Beast learns how to be a gentlemen and slowly slowly slowly Belles starts falling for him. In the meantime, Gaston finds out about Belle being held hostage in a castle and heads there with some of the townspeople to kill the Beast and bring back Belle back home to safety.
it’s a beautifully told story and everything is just about perfect in the show, especially the household objects (played by Emma Caffrey, Nigel Richards, Gavin Lee, Samantha Bingley and Sam Bailey). ‘Beauty and the Beast is romantic fantasy and to be enjoyed by everyone, no matter how old or how cynical. it’s a love story that has stood against the test of time.
Review by Tim Baros