REVIEW: Views From a Hill at Station Theatre, Hayling Island

In Hayling Musical Society’s latest offering, Daniel Wallage is proof positive that this is nonsense. While the majority of the company can hold a tune, Wallage holds it, strokes it, gives it a smacker on the lips and sends it out, with love, to the audience. He does this with minimum movement, minimum gesture, and the rest of the company could learn much from watching him work.

That said, there’s sterling work on show here from Olli Heath, Ewan Wharton, Lucy Summers and – particularly – Emily Rennicks and Charlie Lane. It’s also good to see regular HMS-director Tony Dart treading the boards.

Deviser, director and musical-director, Darren Alderton, has dared to go off the beaten musical-track and has avoided the old favourites (that said, both Oklahoma! and Gigi manage to sneak through) and there’s a lot of good, modern musical on show, here. The band he’s assembled are slick.

Vocally, there are occasional tuning and volume problems, but the audience were clearly enjoying themselves.

And good to see the HMS juniors getting a look- in. There’s clearly embryonic talent a-plenty here.

Until Saturday.