The Sound Of Music – Sutton Arts Theatre.
Sutton Arts Theatre
Thursday 19th June 2025
By : Nigel Gambles
Photography by : Studio 55 Photography
The Sound of Music is a timeless classic, with Julie Andrews playing the iconic Maria in the film. The show follows Maria, a postulant who has trouble conforming to the Abbey life, so she is sent away to be the governess of seven children.
The whole cast worked incredibly as a chorus, with the nuns opening the numbers with what I can only describe as an angelic performance. Although the nuns open the show with saintly songs, we soon meet Maria played by Amy Davies who makes her debut with Sutton Arts. We first meet the character as she sings The Sound of Music entering from the back of the theatre and approaches the stage with projections of hills and mountains on either side giving the effect of walking down the hills. Amy maybe just a wee bit older than the original Maria, but does a splendid job of creating a character that is both gentle and adventurous and has a wonderful singing voice slightly reminiscent of Julie Andrews, but then again how do you describe a character like Maria?
The Von Trapp children are played by 3 teams on the night I went to watch the show. Special mentions to Lois Stokes who plays Brigitta and Ada Hodgson as Gretl, with Liesl being played by Ava Cattell every night of the run. Ava delivers a wonderful performance as the sweet and passionate elder sibling looking for love and becoming a woman. The children do an incredible job on stage both singing Do-Re-Me and create characters that capture the audiences attention. The father of the Von Trapp family is played by Paul Westwood, who at first is cold and uniformed, but as the play goes on we see him open up and fall in love. Although Paul gives a good performance as Von Trapp I felt that the character was missing some of the standards and precision of a military man. Now although the whole cast sang amazingly, I do have to note a few of the supporting roles. The ability of Liz Berriman who played the Mother Abbess, what a spectacular voice. Patrick Rayson who plays Herr Zeller and scares you half to death with his excellent portrayal as the new Nazi governor of Austria, Olly Foster as Rolf Liesel’s love interest and budding Nazi, along with Nick Snowdon as Max Detweiler and Laura Hinton as Elsa Schraeder give good solid performances.
If you have ever visited Sutton Arts Theatre you will know the size of the stage and the fact that it has no wings! The set design by Mark Nattrass is nothing short of amazing, the way the sets change is ingenious and all down to the hard work of the backstage crew and cast.
The costumes were just as you could expect from The Sound of Music, nothing looked out of place or wrong.
Special mention to Emily Armstrong the director on the superb job she has done bringing this classic production to life. Sutton Coldfield will certainly be alive with The Sound Of Music
