Review of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at Milton Keynes Theatre

Panto season is now in full fling and for the latest show, it was Destination MK and Milton Keynes Theatre and Crossroads Pantomimes' new version of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The question is, was the journey to a fairytale land filled with television personalities worth it?

Well, in a way, yes, as it provided an evening of entertainment in a way only a chaotic pantomime could provide. However, the complete package was saddled down sadly by a collection of often weak scenes and far too much bigging up the stars of the show. In fact, you could nearly be forgiven for almost missing the story of Snow White itself, such as it was playing second fiddle to a collection of sketches written for the performers.

Top billing on the show was Lesley Joseph, hot on the heels of her appearance at MK in Sister Act, as Queen Dragonella. Joseph gave a very sprightly performance in her role but like much of the problem with this show, far too much was about Lesley Joseph rather than Queen Dragonella. So much so, that they even decided to make it, an unfunny, running joke. Also on the bill, somewhat bizarrely, was TV's favorite judge, Rob Rinder as The Man in the Mirror, and while he showed some excellent moves, he was very much going through the motions, performance wise and everything he had to do pretty much just related to his TV persona and a good bit of flouncing around.

The surviving half of The Chuckle Brothers, Paul, was also in the cast as Oddjob, and for those of a certain age, it might have left pangs of sadness at seeing Paul on stage without his brother. For the show, Aaron James as Muddles, adopted the role in sketches that Barry Chuckle might have done of old. They formed a likable pairing and a few of their scenes together really worked well including a rather brilliant scene using music clips to complete the conversation. which also included Rinder. And then, like the one with the cucumber, crate, and sword, should never have seen the light of the spotlight. James also featured in another scene, an A-to-Z, which really wasn't worth the stage time either. However, despite this, of the four main stars, Chuckle and James unquestionably provided the best entertainment.

Charlotte Haines in the titular role of Snow White did as much as she could with the surprisingly limited stage time the character had, and her scenes with Dale Mathurin as Prince Harry of Haversham, were the best the show had to offer performance-wise. Mathurin is clearly an accomplished stage performer, and it showed every time he appeared on stage. He also has an exceptionally strong singing voice, by far the best of the cast, and this wisely resulted in his getting the lion's share of the musical numbers.

The ensemble is strong and performs their hearts out in the background throughout a number of scenes, and seven mighty souls among them spend a bit of time on their knees in their roles of the dwarves. The dwarfs also feature in some absolutely brilliant animal costumes (think Bernie Clifton, but with a better budget, for the older folks out there) from designer Mike Coltman, who provides some brilliantly vivid costumes throughout the show. The set from Ian Westbrook is visually appealing and has everything you would expect of a pantomime backdrop. Lighting had a few issues during the performance I saw, including a total failure at the end of act one which revealed for a short period of time the mechanical device which inexplicably helps in the background to end the act.

Direction from Ian Talbot keeps things moving mostly, however, a number of "errors" be they scripted or not, slow the pace down at times, including a few during the clever, but eventually overlong 12 Days sequence.

At the end of the day, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is entertaining enough, and the kids seemed thrilled by the whole thing, and many of the adults had plenty of knowing sniggers at the more adult moments. However, as a show, there were too many lame sections, far too many near-the-knuckle "adult" moments, and too much about the star performers to make this pantomime a classic.

Functional but suffers too much in its pandering to the "stars" of the show.
⭐⭐⭐

Performance reviewed: Tuesday 13th December 2022 at the Milton Keynes Theatre, Milton Keynes.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs runs at Milton Keynes Theatre until Sunday 8th January 2023.

For further details about Milton Keynes see their website at http://www.atgtickets.com/venues/milton-keynes-theatre/

Production photos: Barry Rivett

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