Review of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Pantomime at Manchester Opera House 2019
The Snow White Panto has arrived at the Manchester Opera House and we were invited along to check it out. Here is what we thought.
Running until 29th December 2019, the show stars Strictly Come Dancing Judge Craig Revel Horwood as the Wicked Queen Lucretia, Coronation Street’s Eric Potts as Dame Nora Crumble and Ben Nickless (Buttons from last year’s Panto Cinderalla) as muddles in a funny retelling of Snow White.
With a some small variations, the story followed the traditional tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, who is banished to the woods by the evil queen for being too beautiful and to stop her marrying Prince Harry, who the queen wants for her own.
From the moment the show opened with the apparence of the Magic Mirror and then the very hilarious Seven Dwarfs singing the the very apt The Opera House song, it was apparent that we were were in for an amazing treat.
My seven year old daughter was obsessed with Snow White played by Zoe George and who was well cast. She showed all the charm you would expect of of this timeless character, a great singing voice and in my daughters words had ‘lovely black hair and pink cheeks’.
Prince Harry played by Joshua St Clair also stood out especially during his dance number with Queen Lucretia when he revealed more than his skills to both the Queen’s and half of the audience’s delight.
The new character of Dame Nora Crumble was hilarious, offering audience interaction and the best costumes on the stage. The Seven Dwarfs also need to be mentioned, coming from Manchesterthey were complete with Mancunian accents and very funny costumes.
However for me it was Ben Nickless as Muddles who stole the show in the comedy department. Having seen him in last years Manchester Opera House panto Cinderella, I had big expectations and he didn’t disappoint. Within minutes of appearing on the stage he had everyone in stitches. He had perfect comedy timing and instantly built a repore with the audience. Some of his impressions were recycled from last year, however, I would be more than happy to see his impression of Ozzy Osmond and his Take That sketch over and over again.
The Manchester panto wouldn’t be complete without a big star and this year Strictly’s Craig Revel Horwood filled the high heels. Playing Queen Lucretia although not always perfect, he showed he could sing, dance and that he has a set of legs to be envious of. He played the villian well and was a pleasure to watch.
As we have come to expect from the big Manchester panto’s, no expense had been spared on sets and costumes. The special affects were also out of this world, especially the magic mirror and flying dragon which was my son’s favourite part.
The show of course had all the elements that you would expect from a Panto, with an abudance of ‘Oh No It Isn’ts’, the characters ignoring the audiences advice and plenty of oppertunities to boo. There was the right amount of innuendos without being smutty and the kids in the show were very talented and very cute.
It was great to see the the Panto staple of the 12 Days of Christmas song made an appearance. It had the whole audience laughing out loud especially when everything seemed to go wrong. Whether Ben falling through the curtain and Craig singing 5 Gold Rings instead of 5 toilet rolls was intentional or not, it was truly hillarious and my a highlight for me.
Yet again I was really impressed with Manchester Opera House Panto. The show went back to Panto basics, wowing with the cast’s performance, good old fahioned humour and jaw dropping special affects, rather than trying to rely on out of place modern technology.
My 10 year old son was completely mesmorised and didn’t stop laughing throughout, my seven year old daughter who was feeling under the weather soon perked up dancing along in her seat and shouting at the stage the whenever she had the oppertunity.
It will be no surprise that I would highly reccommend the Snow White and Seven Dwarfs Panto at the Manchester Opera House and as a perfect Christmas treat.
