Paula Cantwell's direction of the latest Octopus pantomime, Treasure Island (9 - 12 January) was a visual feast of colour and fun. Christ the King church hall in Thornbury is not the biggest venue but Octopus always seem to manage to maximise their resources and the sets and costumes were outstanding. Writer, Gill Brooks, brought all the expected characters to life as the story romped along from Benbow Inn to Treasure Island with good winning out in the end. James Linehan played Jim Hawkins excellently and Olivia Cerullo was a wonderfully engaging Sweet Pea whom we knew Jim would end up marrying in the end. A very entertaining crew of pirates were suitably nasty and there were plenty of good jokes involving them. Octopus has some of the best local actors around and the audience was treated to particularly entertainingly drawn characters in Vincent Costello's Long John Silver, Nick Baskerville's Dame and Phil Domaille's Billy Bones who took an extraordinarily long time to die! But Octopus also has a significant number of very talented children and young people in the company and special mention has to be made of Grace Linehan's hilarious portrayal of Polly the parrot and the very high standard of singing and dancing produced by the 'Bevvies,' Helen and Ruth Wallis, Katie Goldhawk, Hannah Dodd, Georgia Radcliffe, Hanna Thompson and Alice Stephens. With such a large cast and crew it's not possible to mention every actor by name but everyone played their part well in a show that left each audience with a smile on their faces. Octopus is a group that does pantomime so well and this latest production was just great. The group is always looking for new members to tread the boards or to help backstage, so why not give secretary Karen Gill a ring on 01454 413783 and join? Tony Domaille
