Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

I have never hidden the pleasure I get from visiting The Mendip Players, as a society they are never afraid to push the boundaries or try something new, and it always means that you are in for an interesting evening of entertainment.  Last year, I had the privilege of visiting them for a pantomime, the first I had seen there, it was random; surreal and very unusual indeed – and I loved it.  My visit this year was to see Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, and I hoped very much for more of the same – I wasn’t disappointed!

The staging for this production was pretty simple and relied mostly on backdrops or basic pieces of set, which was a very sensible idea considering the number of scene changes.  However, some of the scenes, such as the kitchen and dwarf’s cottage, looked really impressive and very well constructed.  Looking at the programme it seems like nearly every cast member was involved somewhere along the line, with either building or decorating the sets/props, and it must be lovely as a society to have so many people who want to get involved.  I know that some societies struggle to get more than a hand-full of people to do anything – I feel this shows the community feel that I always get when I visit a Mendip production.  I wouldn’t normally comment on props but, I had to put a few lines down about the fantastic magic mirror/photo booth/time machine.  Apart from being an unusual, but very welcomed, change to the norm, it was also really well built and looked amazing, even if it did seem a little awkward for poor Tim Cook to wheel around!

The singing was good and Fliss Cobley had obviously worked hard with the singers as they were all crystal clear with good diction, and there were some pretty nice harmonies to boot.  The choreography, by Hannah O’Neill, was also good and seemed reasonably simple – which certainly makes sense in a pantomime, too often I see shows with overly elaborate choreography which only a few members of the cast can do.  Simple done well, always wins the day for me.

The hair, make-up and wardrobe all worked well together.  Everyone was dressed in a way that I would have expected and no-one really stood out as looking odd- which is always a good thing.

The programme comments that the script was adapted, but doesn’t say who it was adapted by, which is a shame because whoever it was truly has an eye for comic detail.  The script was very funny and there was plenty for everyone to do.  I particularly liked the addition of the time travelling, photo taking magic mirror, the professor and the keep fit guru Push-Up and I felt a lot of comic mileage was pulled from these different additions.  On the night I came, some of the gags didn’t seem to land as well with the audience, which was a bit of a shame and it is hard to really understand why.

As usual, with a Mendip production, the cast were on top form and nearly all were very well suited to the parts they were playing.  The relationship between Snow White and The Prince was especially good and very funny – yes, yes it is weird that a strange man goes up and kisses women whilst they sleep, why hasn’t anybody picked up on this before – and was played to perfection by Ana Diaz and Eloise Pryor (I think it was Eloise, for some reason the Prince isn’t mentioned in the programme!).  Tim Cook played the part of Muddles well and managed to get the audience on-side straight away, first time this year where I have seen the “funny-man’s” catchphrase actually work.  I was also particularly impressed with Bethany Thomas as Hannah, the grumpy, snitchy queen’s assistant.  I seem to recall that I was also impressed with Bethany during Alice, and I feel that she should well have a bright am-dram future ahead of her.  Dan Ward gave a relaxed effortless portrayal of Push-Up, injured knee and all, and he was very funny – I would’ve liked to have seen a little more from his character, and his interactions with Senna (Keith Batten) were very funny indeed.  This is not a real surprise as Keith and Dan sparred well together in last year’s panto as Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee and they really do seem to gel together very well on stage.  Unfortunately, this year, Keith seemed a little uncomfortable in the role of the Dame and it did show in his performance, which was a real shame.

Recently, Mendip have started “Mendip Players Youth” and this was my first time to really see some of these youngsters in action.  First of all, I have to say, I am so jealous of the amount of children you had in the production and even more jealous of their talent.  The children were amazing, the younger ones delivered some beautiful little scenes as woodland creatures and it was just so good to see that they refused to leave character, even for a split second.  Some of the older children appeared as the dwarfs, and again they were fantastic, such good fully rounded characters and an awful lot of humour was wringed from them, especially, audience favourite, Luke Archibald who had the audience literally rolling in the aisles with his Bristolian version of Merry the Dwarf.

However, in any production there are always the stand out performers and in this pantomime it had to be Allie White as Queen Druscilla and Sylvie Barham as The Mirror.  Allie seemed to really enjoy playing the bad guy and even managed to reverse things and heckle the audience members, hers was a true star performance and made even more impressive when we saw her hobbling around on crutches after the show!  The other star performer was Sylvie Barham, who managed to make so much out of her role – she was incredibly funny and a true audience favourite.

Overall, this was a really enjoyable show and another great performance from Mendip.  I have to see many pantomimes, as a Noda rep, and so often they spend the money on substance over quality and they look stunning, but are just not funny.  This panto may not have expensive scenery but it was incredibly funny – which to me is far more important.  Well done Mendip, this is why you win awards.

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