The Snow Queen

I have never seen The Snow Queen presented as a pantomime and so was intrigued and excited to receive the invitation to come and watch. Diggle All Stars you did not disappoint - it was a visual delight. I would say that the script itself in my opinion is slightly too long but that is not down to the society, it is very wordy with a lot of information being imparted to the audience and the cast managed to convey all this information with beautifully painted backdrops, bright, traditional pantomime costumes, lots of smiling chorus and a baddie that worked the audience like a dream.

Emily Drake took on the role as The Snow Queen, I have only previously seen Emily as a good character but I have to say she completely owned this part, right down to the consistent fingerography in her costumes gloves. She didn't approach the role all "shouty", she showed cunning and also a nice transition for when her character became good. She worked the audience, wasn't afraid to have her moment and stare them out and also dealt well with the unrehearsed baddie heckling. Her good counterpart Snowdrop was played by Zoey Sweeney who also completely owned her character. This duo had a lot of rhyming dialogue and not once did they trip up in it.

Hazel Edmends played Gran, she was a very much larger than life character, she retained her accent all the way through and was very confident and comfortable both on the stage and moving through the audience. She delivered a very clever "sweets" monologue with gusto and flair. Tracy Buckley (Gerda) and Rachael Russell (Kai) had some nice chemistry on stage. They interacted well with the rest of the cast and helped keep pace as the story unfolded. Minnie Cadogan as Caw and Bella Sweeney-Musselle as Frederika are two youngsters to keep an eye on. They were confident in their dialogue delivery, made eye contact with the audience and were very stable within their characterisations. Laura Derbyshire (Helmut) and Hilary Edgerton (Blossom) both had strong characterisations and helped move the story along, they were both confident on stage with good diction and projection.  Martin Luke played the role of Hans Christian Anderson, he was a narrator of sorts and filled in parts of the story as it was happening, it was very clever to put him at a desk on the side front of the stage, unobtrusive but able to jump in at any given plot point.

The ensemble were hard working  with both a junior and a senior team, at times it meant that there were a lot of people on stage but there was no bumping into each other or even blocking each other, so well done! It's not easy. Choreography was set by Hilary Edgerton, it was executed well and to all ability levels. Costumes were all made in house by Kate Millett and were stunning . They were bright, there was glitter, they were relevant to the story. I particularly liked the snow geese costumes - very effective. The set was all beautifully painted and again colourful, the Snow Queen's sleigh was a triumph, it moved silently and seamlessly even with two adults sat in it. The lighting was complimentary to the scenes and came in on cue. The show was jam packed with musical numbers all very ably accompanied on the piano by Mike Hindson.

Thank you, Diggle All Stars. I enjoyed my visit and look forward to seeing you all again very soon.

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