Snow White & the 7 Dwarves

The traditional village panto is a true institution across the country, pulling together local faces into a week or two of brightly coloured fun. Sometime professionally scripted, but often hand-penned by the society itself. Such was the case with Croyde Players’ latest foray into Pantoland and for the first-time writing duo, this was a good start that showed the potential for bigger better things to come.

The story needs no introduction, so let me dive straight into the cast. A good mixture of age ranges and talent left the adults leading the with the biggest presence being that of ‘Father Brown’, who kept the audiences’ funny bone very well exercised with his highly energetic, comedic performance. In fact the comedy added by Father Brown and his two sidekicks, ‘Nun of This’ and ‘Nun of That’, was fantastic and felt like a well-written concept to replace the Dame (who was noticeably absent from this script).

In the absence of any stage wizardry, our ‘Magic Mirror’ took the form of a ‘cool dude’, head to toe in silver (with the exception of his hair and neck), who gave a creative incarnation of the Wicked Queen’s need for pandering. The Queen herself, ‘Elvira’, was a larger-than-life presence on the stage and successfully drew the appropriate level of disdain from the audience, who’s booing was loud and enthusiastic. The heroine of the piece, the beautiful Snow White herself, was very sweet (with a lovely rendition of ‘Castle on a Cloud’), as was her faithful companion ‘Rosie’ the cat - who could have played the part with more feline characteristics for greater effect.

Strong performances also came from ‘Fairy Nuff’, leading the story along with a smile and a nifty costume complete with wings and the dwarves, each of which had their own characters - including the very non-dwarfy ‘Bungle’ and ‘Budge’, who work together very well. Excellent electric guitar solo from ‘Prince Rocky’ that got a huge reaction from the cast. Well played and a great addition to the show! As for the production as a whole, there were definite strengths that should be exploited further next time, as well as bits that weren’t quite as robust. For example, the best bit of writing the script yourself is that you can mould it to the potential cast you have available, which worked well in this instance. What didn’t work as well was the overall ‘shape’ of the production, which opened with a whimper (where a rousing music number would have got the audience going early) and hit a few plot bumps, such as when Father Brown called of his desperate search for Snow White to hold a ‘Technology Corner’ (which was funny, if a bit clumsy). However, these are things that can be easily overcome with perseverance and the time to take a step back during the writing process - don’t be put off, keep going!! The way the writers introduced new lyrics to the tune of ‘How Do You Solve a Problem’ was brilliant - hard work, no doubt, but give us more!

There were several points when the cast sprang into song and dance, with the latter being one of the strengths of the show. Although the entire cast moved at some point, the main dance came from the children, who delighted the audience with some interestingly choreographed numbers that worked well and were performed with confidence. I particularly liked the ‘Cakewalk’ number performed by the kids in their animal outfits. The look of the production was also very good, with some beautifully detailed backdrops (the clever use of UV in the forrest was genius!), all lit with a colourful style and vibrance to match the costumes were simple and worked well enough - there were some nice ideas, like the kids wearing wooly hats to match the animal they were playing.

This was a fun show which showed a good basis to build on for future years and I hope to see it bloom next year!

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