Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

I must be honest, my first thoughts were this was a large young cast and where were the Seven Dwarfs, we didn’t see them for a long time. My second thought was, this is a different version of Snow White, and who had written it? I have been advised that this is a script by Alex Jackson.

I liked the imaginative opening with the bang and flash for the appearance of Mirror Mirror, we were then, as the story unfolded introduced to the key characters, Queen Malevolent, Snow White, Muddles, Dame Nora Virus, Heinrich and eventually Prince Charles. The Seven Dwarfs with a whole range of new names appeared later, namely Sarg, Jokey, Giggles, Miserable, Blondie, Hippy and Oldie.

The principal characters were each presented well, much enhanced by costumes and wigs. To my mind there was a slight hesitation before Mia’s opening lines as Mirror Mirror, however after this there was no hesitation throughout her performance, she was the epitome of a mirror with her sparkly silver/white costume, tall and striking in amongst the cast giving us good vocals. I particularly enjoyed Sam’s portrayal of Queen Malevolent, she held the audiences’ attention with a great performance, evil and devious, having a good rapport with her henchman Heinrich and a great variety of tone including that of ancient crone. As always one of the characters we all want to see is Snow White herself and this was a nice portrayal from Izzy with a lovely singing voice and a good performance on stage certainly looking the part once she was in the traditional Snow-White dress. She happily played alongside Muddles which was a great role for Rowan, it was nice to see him step up to the mark in a different type of role to normal, one where he had to interact with the audience and have a bit of fun as well. He certainly looked the part as well giving good interaction with the audience together with his repartee with the Dame. Rob Williams was wonderfully dressed as Dame Nora Virus and was greatly appreciated by the audience, he loves his interaction with audience and they love him, great scene stealing appearances and wonderful ad-libs, a very assured performance. Lucia gave a good performance as Heinrich and there were some lovely moments between her and Queen Malevolent, both humorous and ‘touching’, showing a nice personality on stage. Prince Charles was the last adult principal to appear (apart from Sarg?), Charlotte gave us a traditional thigh slapping principal boy. All these Principals gave good vocals with the songs, sorry I haven’t listed songs as the soloists were not identified in the programme.    

We had the seven dwarfs who were clearly identified performing exactly as their names indicated, listed above, namely Megs, Ollie, Ava, Nirvana, Ebony, Evie and Bessie, they did well with their minor principal roles.

There was also a Dance team led by Emily giving several different entertaining dance numbers well performed with good costumes, a senior Chorus, and for this performance Team Apples (also Team Mirror for other performances). All these filled the stage, this large number reminded me of a dance school production, they were well drilled in their choreography and well costumed. The set was simple but effectively dressed although I admit that I didn’t realise that the Tower was curved until I read it in the programme. A clever mirror frame, the Laundry was well dressed with an entertaining ‘washer/dryer’ used in the Castle Laundry scene where poor Muddles was liberally soaked (I’m glad the water pistol was out of action). Costumes and make-up were good, the Dame wigs were outstandingly large, actors are prepared to suffer for their art in costume and make-up. At times we had a full stage and much use was made of all the entrances and exits momentarily leaving an empty stage, although lighting and sound was used to good effect.

A successful and entertaining evenings entertainment, well done all.

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