KINGBRIDGE Amateur Theatrical Society put together an impressive production of Singin’ In The Rain last week.

Based on the 1952 film, Steve Watson took on the main role of famous silent movie star Don Lockwood, opposite Sally Feetenby as up-and-coming singer Kathy Selden. Sally’s silvery voice balanced well with Steve’s deeper tones.

Joe Tapper played the often-overlooked Cosmo Brown with real skill in his dancing and singing, and along with Sally and Steve, their performance of the famous ‘Good Morning’ left the whole audience uplifted.

Christine Bonner was hilariously funny as the bossy and devious Lina Lamont, the character you love and hate in equal measure, but she eventually gets her comeuppance, and her solo rendition of ‘What’s Wrong With Me’ was fantastic.

Monumental Pictures studio head RF Simpson was played fantastically well by Will Reid, who had a great presence on the stage, while Trevor Trout expertly played the long-suffering director Roscoe Dexter.

Geoff Earnshaw, who played the Production Tenor, lent his honeyed tones to the classic ‘Beautiful Girls’, with hypnotic dancing by the Dazzling Dancers.

The whole cast were magnificent from beginning to end, dealing with the inevitable minor prop malfunctions – an uncooperative hat stand and a broken umbrella – with professionalism and joy, meaning they only added to the audience’s enjoyment of the show.

A couple who warrant a special mention was Kirstie Bonner and Talia Robens, whose dancing was particularly impressive, especially when Talia performed ‘en pointe’.

The rest of the ‘dazzling dancers’ Clare Carter, George Hoffman, Helen Mitchelmore and Dina White were all immensely impressive, not putting a foot wrong, and all with what must have been some seriously fast costume changes.

The sets were all designed by stage manager Lin Rowe who has spent weeks leading up to the performance painting and perfecting them, and the effort was worth it – they brought the whole thing together and made you forget you were in a village hall.

The orchestra, led by John Amery who also played the keyboard, and featuring Kate Summers and Cathy Quinlan on reeds, Julie Gill on the trumpet, Tom Gill on the trombone, Dean Morgan on drums and Phil Williams on bass, was amazing – from someone with zero musical talent, listening to them play was a real pleasure.

Felicity Bonner deserves a special mention for being brave enough to step in at the last moment for Annie Robens due to illness, and when I say the last minute, I mean less than an hour before the curtain went up, and she was adorable.

Felicity’s late addition added to the three generations of the same family who came together to put the show on the stage, as Felicity is the director Wendy Morrall’s granddaughter, along with her sister Kirstie who performed as a dancer, and her mother Christine Bonner playing Lina.

If you get the chance to see a KATS production, I would whole-heartedly recommend it. You need to go no further than Malborough Village Hall for top-level, professional shows that would leave most others in the dark, and they do all of this in their time off!

The next time you can catch KATS is in their September show ‘Tons of Money’ – keep you eye on their website: www.kats-kingsbridge.co.uk.