Snow White

It is easy to think that panto is just panto – “It’s not serious so it’s not difficult “– but how wrong can anyone be?  It needs to be slick, fast-moving but not so fast that it leaves the audience behind, and every element has to be just right- casting, costumes, choreography, lighting, music, props and so on. So a lot of work has to go into getting a pantomime to the stage.

The scenery and costumes were very good and looked splendid but the gremlins had taken up residence in the sound system on the first night and the body mics caused problems. I have to say though that the cast did not let this faze them and managed the glitches well.  The pace varied as scene changes took a bit of time. Maybe having some of the shorter scenes done on the smaller staging area at the front while major scene changes were made would have made it slicker.  The singing and dancing was very good indeed and it was obvious everyone had worked hard to perfect the musical numbers.

Leah Sanders’ original script was a good take on the famous story.  Of course, we had Snow White and the Prince but also a Dame and seven wannabe pop stars.  

Snow White (Miley Mathers) dressed in traditional Snow White guise as any small child in the audience would expect, acted and sang well.  In a nicely confident performance Ashley Bell was splendid as Prince Neville and she has a good voice too.  Allison Foreman gave us a good Dame with the requisite outlandish wigs and costumes.  Mia McDonald as the evil Queen Grimhilde was suitably nasty and quickly elicited boos from the audience. An exceedingly fine performance.

Among the smaller principal roles, Maisie Holden and Caitlyn Watkins as the Prince’s friends Nik and Nak were a great pairing and they worked extremely well together. Two well delivered performances.  Another confident performance came from Macie Foley who made a shining Madge the Mirror.  Madge’s costume was a star all on its own which Macie managed well although it did prove problematic with masking sometimes when there were a number of others on stage with her.

Those in minor roles all contributed to the success of the production particularly the Seven Wannabes Poppy (Riannah Thompson), Rocky (Sienna Hall), Classy (Callum Wing), Techno (Arran Murdoch), Jazzy (Rhys Evans) and Hip and Hop (Nicolas Ramos and Ewan McDonald). They worked hard and all characterised their particular role well.  The Ensemble, Sophie Adcock, Marina-Anne Hanks, Lora Stohr (The Spider), Anastasia Egan-Welch and Helena Flack were all kept busy singing, dancing and supporting everyone as Villagers.  Helping to link the story was the author Leah Sanders as The Narrator.

The audience was very appreciative particularly some of the younger members who got very involved screaming at The Spider and well done to those who performed in “If I Were Not in Pantomime” which is difficult to do but was extremely well handled. 

From a personal perspective, one of the best things for me as a NODA Rep is to see so much good young talent on stage.  I hope this young cast stay with drama whether professional or not as we saw some lovely talented young people on the Breckland School stage in Shoestring Theatre’s Snow White.  Congratulations to Writer/Director Leah Sanders and Choreographers Mia McDonald and Leah who must be well-pleased with the end result. Thank you for inviting me to join you.

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