Ivor Tymchak reviews Snow White at Bradford Alhambra…
For decades I’d heard about the Billy Pearce show at the Bradford Alhambra during the Christmas period (otherwise known as ‘panto’) and the legendary status it enjoyed in these lands. Well, I finally had the chance to test the veracity of these claims with a couple of press tickets to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. For good measure I took my thirteen-year-old daughter along to compare notes with afterwards …
The theatre was fully occupied for the night, which augured well for the show and I was almost not disappointed.
I’m guessing the dream of these kind of shows is to hit the impossible heights of Morecambe and Wise improvising with Glenda Jackson during a Christmas special—a laudable aim, but that kind of magic takes years of practice and as this was an early performance, it suffered from a certain amount of woodenness which even Pinocchio would have found embarrassing (the innuendos in the show were on this kind of level).
I saw Adam Stafford, who plays Dame Betty Blumenthal, trying hard TO ‘corpse’ (coming out of character due to uncontrollable laughter) during the show, which told me the performances hadn’t fully warmed up yet. There was one occasion though where Billy Pearce improvised a couple of lines after a baby cried as a result of his singing which was a genuinely funny moment and hinted at the wonderful comic possibilities of panto when the cast and audience are high on spontaneity. And in all honesty this is Billy Pearce’s show, he dominates it throughout and is by far the star attraction. For a ‘maturing’ man, he can still move well around the stage and perform all his own stunts.
As an adult, I found this production’s cavalier attitude towards story, character development and exposition to be disappointing (Ivor, it’s a panto for goodness sake!) as these details still matter in my book. The cast gave the impression they couldn’t be bothered with establishing characters and scenarios as we, the audience, probably knew all that stuff already – don’t you audience? Oh yes you do!
A part of the show that concerned itself with homosexuality slightly puzzled me – is homosexuality meant to be satirised, looked down upon, tolerated or what?
I noticed my daughter joined in the somewhat over-encouraged audience participation element in the second half of the show and when I asked her afterwards if she was caught-up in the moment or she’d made a conscious decision to join in, she admitted the latter.
OK, I’m probably going to be the hardest audience to please during the festive season (I don’t even like humbugs) but when I compared my notes with my daughter’s (yes, she did make some during the show!) we invariably agreed on the highlights: the production values of the show are so high that it delivers spectacularly on costumes (the dwarves are particularly good), sets, dance routines and impressive stunts. Fortunately, these elements are in sufficient quantity to send away any audience suitably entertained despite the absence of any finesse in the story telling.
Full houses are guaranteed and my daughter genuinely enjoyed the show.