Morna Young’s very Scottish adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson’s The Snow Queen is a delight from start to finish. We watch as if through a mirror to a beautiful rendering of the Lyceum’s Grand Circle recreated on stage into a clever two-level set crafted with much detail (we were in row A of the stalls so got a pretty close up view). The costumes are beautifully crafted too.
The tale is a pretty closely followed retelling of the classic fairy tale, but moved to Scotland which affords us a grand opportunity to mix modern and auld Scots with a fair bit of the Doric. This leads to several good one liners in what is a funny but not pantomime script.
In fact it’s not panto at all, which is the way with the Lyceum’s Christmas shows, but this, more than most, is primarily concerned with storytelling and performance than ‘she’s behind you’ and lewd innuendo, although Richard Conlon gets a chance to successfully air his comedy chops as a camp unicorn in act 2.
It’s directed by Cora Bissett but doesn’t particularly feel like a Cora show. I don’t know why I say that because she has a pretty broad repertoire. It somehow feels more constrained than I’d expected Cora to be with this. That’s not to say her work is not up to scratch because it very much is. She teases excellent performances out of the entire cast, led by a newcomer to me, Rosie Graham as Garda.
One young child sitting next to us was clearly scared to bits by Clare Dargo as the Snow Queen and had to leave after 20 minutes, but it’s not a scary show and should be good for most kids, although it is quite long. Maybe a touch too long if I’m honest.
It’s really quite a lovely performance. Touching and sentimental without being gushy and I for one would highly recommend it.
Enjoy.
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