Egg-timer can be a bit of a beast!

May 30 2007 By Gail-Nina Anderson,

Beauty and the Beast, Theatre Royal to June 9

No, panto season hasn't suddenly arrived. This is a stage version of the 1991 Disney cartoon, complete with the original music by Menken and Ashman, a live orchestra and a lot of dauntless performers pretending to be tea-pots, light-fittings etc.

I wonder how many budding drama students thought they would start their career as an all-singing, all-dancing toast rack or egg timer?

Yes - in this variation of the traditional tale the prince becomes a monster - and all his household staff are caught in the spell and turned into what the programme temptingly calls "enchanted objects". The problem is that this sort of visual whimsy is the stuff cartoons are made for, but translating it into human performance takes the edge off the visual wit.

The dialogue doesn't make up for it, nor does the by now inevitable political correctness of making heroine Belle feisty, well-read and independent. Still, the songs are funny (especially those of the insufferable, well-muscled and remarkably tall suitor Gaston) and the dance routines of household objects do have a surreal appeal.

Ashley Oliver as Belle hit the right combination of delicacy and determination and Matthew Cammelle was in fine voice as the hero. I'm not the ideal audience for this, but if you know a small girl who is really a princess in a big yellow frock, this is the show for her.