Sing-a-long-a Beauty and the Beast at The Lowry Manchester Review

Reviewed by Rosemary Knight

On Sunday afternoon, I took my excited seven year old granddaughter, Heidi to the Lowry Theatre in Salford, Manchester to watch Sing-a-long-a Production’s new show Beauty and the Beast, starring Emma Watson as Belle and Dan Stevens as the Beast. When we arrived at the theatre we were surrounded by scores of children dressed up as characters from the film, happily anticipating their chance to take part in the show.

On reaching our seats, we discovered we had all been given a goody bag full of props for us to use throughout the film. Our pre-show host taught us to warm up our voices, how to use the props, and most importantly when to boo Gaston!

When the film began, the entire audience burst into song. Luckily the lyrics were on screen so the few people who didn’t know the words were able to sing along merrily with the rest of us. Just about everyone knows the iconic fairy tale of clever, independent Belle who is imprisoned in the fearsome Beast’s enchanted castle, making friends with his magically transformed staff. The film has been updated, but is full of all the well-known songs, such as ‘Be our Guest’, ‘Belle’, ‘Gaston’ and of course ‘Beauty and the Beast’. In the end of the story, Belle discovers that she can see beyond the Beast’s ugliness to his kind inner self and he is transformed back into a handsome prince. True love conquers all is the moral of the story, as in all good fairy tales.

This is fantastic family entertainment at its best. There is so much audience participation, with everyone laughing, singing, waving glow sticks and just being silly. I looked around me at one point and the entire theatre was lit up by the audience waving torches and lights. There was a moment in the film during a snow storm when snowflakes cascaded from the ceiling into the theatre audience. It was truly magical.

This is quite a long show at three hours long and is aimed at five years plus, although I did see quite a few toddlers who were just as enthralled as the rest of us. If you get chance to see the show, please do go. The atmosphere was fantastic and we had a fabulous, fun filled time.

Rating: 5/5

Sing-a-long-a Beauty and the Beast is currently on tour around the UK, for more information and tour dates visit www.singalonga.net.

For other shows at The Lowry in Manchester visit www.thelowry.com.

The Lowry, Pier 8, Salford Quays, Manchester, M50 3AZ | 0843 208 6000