Frozen Jr

I had to rack my brains and think, how do you get a feature length animated movie into a one-hour stage show? In the end very easily. You start off by not emulating the scenery and ‘sets’ from the film. You create a simple completely clear set with to the rear a curved sloped platform, clever lighting design and the use of several entrances and exits to enable the large cast to move quickly around and off the stage.

There was a large cast, but despite the small size of the theatre, never once did you get the impression that the stage was crowded, this was due to good direction and choreography. The colour for this show was brought alive with the costumes, well-chosen and coordinated by the costume team led by Cynthia Maxey, the youngsters were still all well turned out at the end of the run. It was nice to see that they were all well designed and fitted, of particular note were the costumes for the principals Kristoff, Hans, Sven, Anna and particularly Olaf and Elsa with her spectacular costume change (thank you magnets!). Excellent work by the wardrobe team, not to be outdone, were both the Choreographers and Musical Director. Choreography was drilled and entertaining the young dance teams were put through their paces and moved with enthusiasm, vigor and timing. The company singing was very good and there was excellent solo singing. Sound was excellent, the vocal projection of all characters was good and dialogue was clear. Lighting design was most effective especially for the appearances of the Hidden Folk.

The telling of the story by the Elsa’s and Anna’s, having young and middle ages before the senior principals worked very well with good young singers and actors, Sophie, Eloise, Maisie and Madeline. There was a good core of minor principals King, Queen and Bishop etc.

The stars of the show were however the six principals, I’m sure if others had been cast in these roles the show would have been good, but these six made it very good. Aiden in his role as Kristoff brought this character into believable life and his relationship with the adorable Sven played by Evie was very good. These two worked well together and gave us an enjoyable rendition of ‘Reindeer(s) are better than People’, good stage presence, dialogue and singing and a believable ‘playing’ of the, what was it? a Lute in ‘Kristoff’s Joik’. Well done both of you. Edward as Hans had the unenviable task of being the handsome suitor, turning instantly into the utter cad, a really good transformation of character, his was a great duet with Anna as they sang ‘Love is an Open Door’. Anna had the task of portraying a loving sister almost frozen to death and then being revived to rescue her sister. As Anna, Amelia had some lovely duets with Elsa and was a great performer great acting and singing by Edward and Amelia.

Mia as Elsa, what can be said, she performed this role with style and skill, acting and sounding superb and what a voice, amazing. She also looked stunning after the excellent transformation scene, I can’t believe you celebrated your 13th birthday that day, a great performance. Of course, everyone wanted to see Olaf and here Bridie was perhaps the star of the show. What was so fantastic was that Bridie was Olaf, we didn’t see an actor manipulating a puppet, we saw a puppet that was a real live person whose voice just happened to be Bridie’s this was a really amazing performance, a great costume, make and puppet. You six actors should be really proud of the performances you gave.

I also cannot miss out the performance of Ollie as Oaken, your performance of Hygge was just off the wall, so brilliant, excellently sung and performed.

The whole company gave us an hour’s excellent entertainment, A great return to youth productions with a really great production team, Rob, Liam, Melissa, Samantha, Marie and Cynthia. Well done to you and the whole company.

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