Snow White

Although, on a very personal level, pantomime is my least favourite theatrical genre, The Waterloo & Crosby Theatre Group pulled out all the stops to impress with their annual pantomime, Snow White.  Using a Leo Appleton script meant that whilst maintaining the traditional ‘panto feel’ with all the familiar and much-loved aspects, the sing along, children on the stage, the dame etc. the traditional storyline was followed and updated to be more relevant, and dare I say more ‘politically correct’ but still laugh out loud funny.

The direction was, as always, very good – and everyone on stage had obviously been drilled in basic stage craft and how to behave on stage, and the cast followed their directions very well.  I realise all this sounds a bit stuffy, but not a bit of it!  There were laugh out loud moment by the score and everyone, cast and audience alike, appeared to be having a wonderful time.  For me, the test of a good pantomime is always ‘were the children in the audience interested throughout, engrossed, and involved?  The answer, in spades, is YES, they certainly were!  They shouted, sung, laughed and cheered all the way through.  I would say that is ‘mission accomplished’!   

It says much for the popularity of this group that they invariably double cast their younger principals and with a cast of over 50 the stage is nicely filled, but never appears over filled.

Costumes are all provided by the group themselves, so they always look good, and fit well – as if they were made to fit – which of course is very many cases, they are!!  

Stage crew worked well, and scene changes were all managed quickly, quietly, and efficiently with the minimum of down time.  

Just a little note here regarding the music, the group do use a fair amount of recorded music, but many congratulations must go to Annie Dickinson (MBE) the pianist extraordinaire who accompanies most of the solo and ensemble songs and does it brilliantly.  Whilst speaking of the music I did find that I was not familiar with many of the songs chosen, (but of course that could just be my age!) but I did find the song at the end of Act 1 a little down-beat and would have preferred something with a bit more oomph!

Wonderful to see so many happy smiling faces, especially in the opening number, it really sets the tone for the show. The chorus worked well together, choreography was good, and appropriate to the ages and ability of the chorus, so it was slick and performed well.

I am not going to mention individual members of the cast, but everyone was well cast, and some good characterisations portrayed across the whole cast, the cheers and boos from the audience left us in no doubt of the ‘goodies and the baddies’, so the characters were obviously being portrayed well.   Just a word of caution, try to speak a little slower, particularly in moments of high emotion, so that the audience can hear what you are saying, but generally, diction was OK and facial expressions were all good.  Dialogue was slick and moved along well with no down time.  The cast worked really well together and looked as if they were really enjoying what they were doing, (a wonderful example of ‘teamwork) so the audience did as well!     

All in all I would say that, in my opinion, this was the best panto yet – so very many congratulations to every single person involved both on stage and off with this marathon production, and, on a personal level, thank you so much for the, as always, warm and friendly greeting and wonderful hospitality.

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