The Habbit Factory’s Sleeping Beauty Was A real Treat For Havering’s Community.

By Ruth Kettle-Frisby – Guest Writer and Community Activist

Ruth is passionate about fostering positive change within the local community and regularly contributes insights and stories to The Havering Daily.

Sleeping Beauty by the Habbit Factory at MyPlace in Harold Hill this Christmas was a triumph of a production and a real treat for Havering families. A rare, anti-elitist gem that delivered unmatched joy well beyond its budget. 

Lovingly situated in Harold Hill by a team who clearly understand the area, Sleeping Beauty was a performance and a half: with incredible set design, props, costumes, choreography that was second-to-none…and even a rather spectacular dragon! 

Written and directed by the inimitable Lee Giles, this momentously collaborative production was supported by over fifty volunteers and contained everything you could possibly want: from perfectly pitched innuendos to an impressive tongue-twisting extravaganza (putting Peter Piper and his pickled pepper right in their place), all embellished in a glorious tapestry of glitz, glamour and a jaw-dropping variety of sky-scraping hair styles.

Hannah-Marie Salmon dazzles as a lyrical fairy who narrates the tale in rhyme, while Giles as the hilarious Dame and Zoe Andronikou as Silly Milly – true naturals, who carry the performance unforgettably – weave the story together, keeping the entire audience in peals of laughter. 

Festive themes of extravagance vs insignificance were gently challenged in personified fairy forms with exceptional style and talent – not least by Evil Magnificence herself, played to startling effect by Sarah Steel.

Writer and Director, Lee Giles, certainly knows his audience, who were captivated throughout. Cultural references aimed at children from KPop Demon Hunters to a giant Labubu, were juxtaposed with Monty Python coconut hooves and the unmistakeable Eastenders ‘You’re-not-my-mother!-Yes-I-am!’ exchange for nostalgic grown-ups!

The entire pantomime showcased all the hallmarks of a traditional panto – the costume committee deserving particular praise – while joyously flipping gender and disability norms and expectations proudly on their heads to a soundtrack of belting tunes.

Princess Aurora herself, her wonderful Prince Harold of the Wood, her royal parents, and her lovely disability aide – aptly named, ‘Aid’ – warmed hearts, but it was the younger children who stole the show: woodland animals delighted in a magically atmospheric forest that the children brought to life, complete with a wonderfully accomplished performance of an enchanted tree.

The Habbit Factory is a theatre organisation we can be proud of in Havering. A place “where everyone can have their moment in the spotlight”, because it explicitly welcomes all children and young adults to the arts to entertain as well as challenge stigma.

Disability is so often hidden and confined to the margins of society, so it is brilliant to see disabled children and non-disabled children performing together – something we deserve to see more of.

All funds raised from their sold-out Sleeping Beauty production went straight into further work with children & young people within the local area.

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