Lots of laughs and a warm glow from Hurst’s Snow White show
Snow White Hurst Panto Group January 17-19
HURST Panto Group’s Snow White provided great family fun with lots of sparkling and also suitably scary original ideas. The enthusiastically involved audiences left Hurst Village Hall wrapped in a warm glow.
The show – performed last Thursday, Friday and Saturday – was directed and produced by Claire Lawrence with assistant director Clare Bray and it moved at a confident and flowing pace.
Erin Bowe did great work as Snow White.
She and Melanie Stewart as Prince Caspian impressed early on with their “meeting” duet song.
Jonathan de Mounteney brought his clever talents to the dame, Nurse Nursie. He and Katy Lawrence as the effective, multi-joking Muddles, had a fast-paced flying dough cooking scene.
Also delivering engaging jokes with glee was
Clare Bray as evil Igor. Calculating Queen Elvira was played by Hope Lawrence with delicious and flowing malevolence.
Maddie Deeks as narrator Fairy Snowdrop moved the story along well.
The audience loved Keith Milner as the Mirror.
His retort to Elvira’s dismay at not being fairest of us all went down well: “You’re just annoyed with me because you’re being upstaged by a prop!”
AJ Saliba was a commanding Chief of the characterful dwarf team played by Rebecca Weller, Felix de Mounteney, Patsy Jeggo, Zenna Keen, Darcy Hodgkins and Philip Payne.
The audience was greatly involved. Their dwarves version of the hit Baby Shark children’s song was memorable.
Choreographers for the polished dance scenes by the excellent choruses and others were Hannah Guile, Emma Vaughan and Katy Lawrence. Musical director Donald Stewart and his band provided atmospheric accompaniment.
Stage Manager was Stephanie Milner, lighting by Duncan Kendall, sound by Jonty Edwards and Eddie Coe and costumes by Julia Alsop, Ann Guile and Claire Lawrence.