Review - The Eye Of The Needle (From Bromsgrove Advertiser)

Review - The Eye Of The Needle

12:30pm Sunday 15th July 2012 in What's On

THE Eye of the Needle was originally composed in 2005 by Malcolm Carlton with libretto by Cathy Moss, to celebrate the opening of the refurbished Palace Theatre.

Based on a true story, it follows the life of main character, Sally who is haunted by the ghost of a young girl.

There are not many towns that have the expertise to perform a musical of this standard, but fortunately Redditch is one of them.

Kingsley College is a specialist college in the performing arts, once led by Cathy Moss of Indigo Arts, who gathered together a cast of more than 40, chiefly from the school.

On Saturday and Sunday, July 7 and 8 the musical was performed in the cloisters of Forge Mill to an audience of 100.

And the audience were not disappointed, it was a wonderful performance, bursting with enthusiasm and vitality.

Sweet Sally, played by Sophie Thompson, sang with such feeling that there was scarcely a dry eye in the audience.

Her villainous husband, played by Daniel Summers, was so convincing that you wonder if anyone will ever like him again.

The solemn, chanting monks were unrecognisable in later scenes as the bawdy pointers, a fearless crowd whose life expectancy is only 35 years from inhaling steel dust.

The mill girls sang and worked as if their life depended on it and even managed a dance in the confined space.

Perhaps some of the high notes were a little weak but the performance was so overwhelming it didn’t matter.

Sadly, if you want to see the musical again this year, you will have to travel up to the Edinburgh Festival for The Fringe.

Anne Bradford