Review by Paul Towers, 14/12/24
Snow White by Eric Potts & Janice Dunn
Directed by Janice Dunn
Produced by Imagine Theatre Ltd
At DeMontfort Hall until Sunday 5th
January 2025
Panto season is in full swing and this
weekend I was at, in my humble opinion, the best that Leicester has to offer
with Snow White at DeMontfort Hall.
The start of the run has had a minor hiccup
when Gyasi Sheppy, who was playing Prince Laurance, had to pull out due to
family issues. Thankfully Leicester favourite Anthony Costa of Blue is able to
step in from 17th December. The Prince’s understudy, choreographer
Stuart Rogers, stepped into the breach and, if I am honest, you can’t see the
join! It was like he was cast from the start.
So it was with mounting excitement that the
sold out auditorium waved their light sticks and munched down on bags of Haribo
expectantly.
The ensemble of eight dancers/singers and, as
we eventually discovered, puppeteers opened the show backing up the first song
from Snow White (Tash Bacarese-Hamilton). However it wasn’t long before the
wicked stepmother in the shape of Queen Morgania (the deliciously fiery Divina
De Campo) was spitting venom at all and sundry. Including the audience.
Attempting to massage the ego of the Queen
was The Spirit of The Mirror (Leicester’s own Sam Bailey) while the court
lackies, Nurse Nora (Jack Ballard) and Muddles (Jared Christmas) are torn
between obeying the monstrous monarch and protecting Snow White.
These days nobody outside of London can
afford to use real dwarves in panto so puppets have replaced them and Abigail
Matthews has an effective Seven Dwarves operated by the ensemble.
To further people the village and court there
are three Junior Ensembles culled from local schools
Snow White runs at DeMontfort Hall until
Sunday 5th January 2025
https://www.demontforthall.co.uk
https://ptheatre.blogspot.com/
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