Snow White and the Magnificent Seven Dwarfs

Snow White, heiress to the 'Happy Ever After Cattle' ranch, is the fairest girl on the prairie - but her wicked and jealous stepmother, Widow Blackheart, plots to separate her from her fortune! Can Snow White survive her treacherous schemes and win the hand of Sheriff Vince Charming? A band of seven brave miners, her life long friend, Nanny Oakley, a pantomime horse and a brainless idiot, Silly Billy the kid, are there to help her! A terrific family pantomime full of silliness and audience participation! .......... So reads the synopsis to Lazy Bees original pantomime script.

I will be upfront and say I like my pantomime traditional... An American ‘western’ pantomime, if that’s not a contradiction in terms, with American drawling accents, as broad as the American prairies, didn’t work for me. This musical production (pantomime) was a brave attempt to try and impress the audience with something different.

Whilst it is commendable to try to include all the Minis and juniors, the extraordinarily large cast of children, detracted from the story making entrances and exits overlong, thus making the pace of the show slow. This was further increased by slow pick up of lines from some characters. The audience on the Friday night were not very responsive early in the evening, but it is the job of the main characters to get the audience on their side right from the start. There were times when I felt the cast were hampered by a laboured script, but NM shone when using their own inventiveness... ‘Ernie’, the fastest milk man episode’; poor pace, forgotten lines, and even an occasionally  ‘what comes next’, was obvious and hampered my enjoyment.

‘Widow Blackheart’ and ‘Chief Shining Mirror’ were both very good and put great effort to establishing their characters and therefore their performances stood out. The script didn’t offer much opportunity for ‘Snow White’ and certainly not ‘Vince Charming’, pity, as they could both act and sing well. The dwarfs were a united success with plaudits to ‘Bossy Bob’ and ‘Punning Pete’. The songs kept the action going but weren’t really helped by the rather pedestrian accompaniment from the one tempo band.

An unfortunate upset during the ‘children on stage’ scene really didn’t improve my overall impression of the show. This was not anyone’s fault, but perhaps children should be pre selected, then you don’t get the 8 instead of 4 and be very careful who you choose to be the ‘stooge’... the poor performer, he really was mortified and the audience was very uncomfortable.                                                                                                                                   Were the audience entertained, yes, and the applause at the end proved so, but did this show do justice to the normally talented and excellent Nailsea Musicals... not in my opinion, on this occasion. Sorry, it’s only my opinion on one night.

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