The Snow Queen

Wayfarers Pantomime Society ‘The Snow Queen’ by Alan Frayn

Friday 18th January 2019 19.30 Performance

Brewhouse Theatre Taunton

Director / Choreographer: Sheila Driver

Musical Director: Matt Holman-Holmes

My first Wayfarers Pantomime as you new NODA representative and how lovely to be made so very welcome and be given the added honour of presenting NODA long service medals to three of your stalwart members. Thank you.

My heartfelt congratulations go to Keith Smith, Martin Lock and Ray Jarvis. I’m not entirely sure exactly how many years you have clocked up between you but it must be an impressive number and added together with all the experience from your other members it makes for a strong backbone of skills to keep the society strong and successful. This was beautifully demonstrated in the calibre of the show I was about to watch.

Once settled in the auditorium the show was a delight from start to finish. Beautifully crafted and moving along at a good pace the, very wordy and in places quite convoluted, script gave us most of the pantomime elements and you added a flash of brilliance to the overall presentation with good direction, skillful choreography and great music. You were given a lot of characters to bring the story to life, and sometimes the stage seemed very busy but all characters, from principals, chorus, dancers and TWYGS were well presented and this helped to make a great impression on the audience. Comedy moments were perhaps not as evident as in some of Mr. Frayn’s work, but it made a refreshing change to not have too many of his often repeated across different script jokes! Well done to Granny and Konrad for the slick delivery of the sweetie scene. I laughed out loud at that. The custard pies were just the right consistency too and they were a great addition to some very good props.

Scene changes were slick and accurate although it would have been an added treat  to have seen some snow outside the window when the script indicated that it was turning cold and snowing outside. Lighting sequences reflected the changes of temperature really well and I did genuinely find myself feeling chilly in the cold, blue sections. Great stuff. Sound was mostly well balanced but it was a pity to not be able to discern the lines of dialogue delivered by chorus members who were not wearing a microphone, there didn’t seem to be anything else picking up their voices and we subsequently sadly lost a lot of their input.

Costumes and make-up were, as always with a Wayfarers show, visually pleasing, all really well thought out and gave exactly the right impression. A simply stunning finale in blue and silver, which was just fabulous. Alongside the visual treat we had the aural treat from the musicians. Great work from Matt and the band - thank you. Of course, not forgetting the skillful arrangements and some really impressive singing. All these added to the overall high standard that is always evident from the entire team that is the Wayfarers. How lovely to be celebrating 50 years of Pantomime – here’s looking forward to the next 50 and seeing the talent that is evident in the TWYG’s group move onwards and upwards to carry the Panto flag into the future. It certainly looks assured to me!

So all in all a lovely show delivered with great enthusiasm, professionalism and unfaltering energy. I thoroughly enjoyed my evening. Thank you for your kind hospitality and I look forward to next year’s show.

Jane Burt

NODA SW Representative

District 8a.

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